


More

by NiteFang



Category: Life with Derek
Genre: F/M, Humor, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-10
Updated: 2012-06-10
Packaged: 2017-11-07 11:22:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/430558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NiteFang/pseuds/NiteFang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whether it be in the past, the present, or the future, people have always wanted one thing, and no matter how much Derek Venturi and Casey McDonald argue that they're above everyone else, they still want the same thing as the rest of humanity—more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "Enchanted"/"Love Story" - Taylor Swift

She walked out onto the deck of the cruise liner, taking in deep lungfuls of the familiar Atlantic sea breeze. It had been nine years since she’d breathed this familiar air, but the imprint of its smell and taste were fresh in her mind. She shifted her floor-length gown away from the edge before balancing her forearms on the metal railing. Billowing in the wind were tendrils of brunette spirals that had escaped from the intricate netting of hair pinned to the back of her head with diamond pins and crystal flowers. The magenta blush of the sunset cast a pink glow across her pale skin as she closed her eyes and tilted her head up into the light of the sky in front of her.

She’d been there before—not necessarily on this exact ship, on this precise spot, but the setting had been similar enough…some nine years ago when being a teenager was an arduous mixture of knobby knees, pimples, and the last stages of the transitional phase where boy _cooties_ turned into _cuties_ in a bizarre, cataclysmic event that looked like a flash of fluorescent lights, sounded like the slam of locker doors, and left a lingering taste of tater tots.

However, had she been standing on the precise location, on the exact same ship, and in the very spot she would’ve been right where they’d met on that godforsaken, fateful day. The day that, if it hadn’t occurred, would’ve made the lives of her family significantly less stressful…and infinitely more bleak.

She gripped the cool, rounded metal tightly between her fingers, smiling at the smooth paint finish. And she _remembered_.

**Nine Years Ago**

Even in the white button-down shirt, blue tie, and black dress pants, Casey McDonald could tell that he was a scrawny little thing—the type who could be the victim to a bully. Only in this situation, the roles seem to have reversed. Feet perched on the bottommost rung of the railing and hips pressed against the handrails, he was leaning away from the ship with his hand poised to chuck a pebble into the ocean below. A perfect picture, really.

“What are you doing?” Casey barked, cutting through the relative silence of the deck and making the brown-haired boy jump in surprise.

He turned to stare at her with a guilty expression—complete with sheepish grin and half-shrugged shoulders. The mischievous glint in his chocolate-brown eyes belied all that, though. “Nothing.”

Narrowing her eyes and setting her hands on her hips, Casey jerked her chin at the small rock in his hand. She’d come out here for fresh air—not to find circumstances in which she could emulate her mother. “You stole that from the fountain in front of the grand staircase, didn’t you?”

He smiled then.

No… _wait_. It wasn’t really a _smile_. One corner of his mouth curved up higher than the other, but it still managed to reach his milk-chocolate eyes. There were actors in movies and TV shows with that same expression, but to see it on the face of this smug little prepubescent boy who’d been in the process of trying to brain a fish, that _smirk_ made Casey nervous.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t think of doing it too,” he said shrewdly, jumping down from the rails and coming to stand in front of her.

Casey scoffed, ignoring the way the breeze picked up his hair and made it flutter over his fudge eyes that glinted in the sunset. Grimacing at her errant thoughts, she jammed herself back into reality. “Well, that’s just too bad because that’s exactly what I was about to say. I have better things to do with my time than participate in Neanderthal-like activities.”

Having just learned the word “Neanderthal,” she’d jumped at the chance to toss it into any conversation—and it had made sense to her. Throwing rocks sounded like something cavemen would do, so she felt confident in its usage. Her confidence grew as his smirk turned into a scowl.

He tried to straighten himself up imposingly and crossed his arms over his chest. “Why aren’t you at the party anyway?”

She frowned. “Random, much?”

He motioned at her emerald green dress with two fingers. “You’re _dressed_ for the party. Why aren’t you _there_?”

She mimicked his stance and crossed her own arms over her chest, huffing in exasperation as his scowl deepened. “Why aren’t _you_? You’re dressed for it too. Unless you make a whole ceremony out of attacking marine life.”

He ignored her last statement and simply answered bluntly, “It’s _boring_.” He belated to remembered that he was still holding the pebble and promptly lobbed it overboard.

“HEY!” Casey snapped, slapping his arm. “What’d you do that for?!”

He seemed a little taken aback by her sudden and violent outburst and took a step back. “What’s your problem? It’s not like it can hurt anything down there.”

Casey glared at him and spluttered incredulously, “W-W-What?! There are thousands of creatures down there! Manatees, whales, eels—if you’d switch the channel away from sports or cartoons long enough to catch a documentary once in a while, you’d have something to rattle around in your skull instead of just hearing some sort of _whooshing_ in your ears! What if you hit a dolphin?!”

He gaped at her in disgust for a few seconds before rolling his eyes and crossing the deck to lean over the railing again. He peered overboard for a second before turning back to her. “No dolphin,” he deadpanned.

Clenching her teeth and squeezing her lips together so tightly that they nearly disappeared, Casey threw one last withering glare at him before turning on her heel and gracefully stomping back to the stairs that led below deck.

“Hey, wait!”

A hand shot out and gently wrapped around her elbow. She jumped and twisted to see the boy standing less than a foot away. She tugged her arm out of his grasp and took an awkward step back.

“What do you want?” she choked out, trying to sound disdainful and failing miserably.

He raised an eyebrow at her but then pointed at the other set of stairs across the deck. “The party’s that way.”

Her eyes darted to the other stairs, and she shifted from one foot to the other. “That’s the _teen_ party.”

His raised eyebrow inched higher and higher on his forehead. “Oh, no. _Oh, no_. Don’t tell me the _keener’s_ going to the _adult party_.”

She glared at him again, vaguely noting the fact that she’d never made this face so many times in the thirteen years she’d been alive so far. _“Keener?”_

He cocked his head to one side and shoved his hands into his pockets. “You know, _nerd_ or _geek_ —someone who’s really _keen_ on getting good grades and stuff. I can tell you’re one of them. You use all these big words like you had a brain transplant with a college professor.”

She rolled her eyes and gave the full moon a beseeching look as if asking it why she was even _talking_ to this boy.

“I’m not a _keener_ ,” she said haughtily. “I just want to learn as much as I can so I don’t sound like an _idiot_.”

Instead of scowling at her pointed remark, his smirk turned into an actual smile, and she swallowed nervously at the butterflies that took flight somewhere near her gallbladder.

“So, _keener_ , why aren’t you going to the teen party?” he asked, changing the subject _once again_.

“Because I don’t want to, _jerk_ ,” she shot back before spinning around and heading back to the stairs. This time, he didn’t grab her arm; he fell into step with her.

“What are you doing?” she asked, frowning at him from the corner of her eye.

“I’d think it was pretty obvious,” he answered. “I’m _walking_. So much for that brain transplant, huh?”

“I _see_ that you’re walking,” she gritted out through her teeth. “Why are you walking _with me_?”

“Why not?”

Casey sighed in frustration as they descended the stairs. “What’s so boring about the teen party anyway? Why don’t you want to go back there?”

“I wasn’t talking about the teen party.”

“You’re going to the adult party too?” she asked, confused. He’d made it sound like… Well, contrary to her previous assumptions, he didn’t seem like the victim type anymore. On top of being the kind of boy who’d much rather hang out with kids his age rather than his parents, he seemed to be…

“Duh. That’s why I said it was boring,” he said.

“Why didn’t you go to the teen party then?” she persisted, still clutching to her previous train of thought. He seemed to be…

He ruffled his hair in what looked to be a nervous gesture. “I’m not allowed.”

She jerked her head back in surprise. “Why?”

When he answered, she realized that the hair-ruffling was as close to an indication that he had a modicum of modesty because what he said next (and how he said it) testified to the fact that this boy was most _definitely_ one of _those_ boys.

With that self-satisfied smirk, he answered smugly, “Because those girls can’t get enough of me, and if I went, they’d never let me leave.”

Casey stopped in the middle of the staircase, her feet on different steps. She turned to look at him as he stopped on the step below her and turned to face her.

“How you managed to lean over the railing and not fall off due to the giant weight of your ego is beyond me.” Then she sniffed and brushed past him as she continued down the stairs.

But then he laughed and skipped a few steps to catch up to her. “I’m Derek, by the way.”

“And I’m not impressed.”

“Who said I was trying to impress you?”

She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned long enough to give him a longsuffering look. Cute or not, he was getting very, very annoying. She ignored his last question and made her way through the grand foyer to the left ballroom where the adult cocktail party was being held.

“Why are you on deck anyway?” he asked, as if the thought had just occurred to him.

She shrugged and pulled out a smirk of her own. “I was bored.”

He grinned hugely, and in the most gentlemanly gesture, he pulled open the ballroom door for her. She walked inside with a shy smile, feeling the beginnings of a blush forming on her cheeks.

“Thanks,” she said shyly, stepping into the dimly-lit ballroom.

Derek—this boy who couldn’t be a _year_ older than her—had the gall to smirk even wider and then _wink_ at her, and in the flashing strobe lights and the glimmer of the disco ball, he looked even more diabolically devious than she originally pegged him to be.

“Casey!”

A little girl with light brown hair and a smudge of chocolate on her face suddenly materialized next to Casey. Gripping the tulle skirt of her sky blue dress with one hand, the younger girl reached up to grip Casey’s hand. “They’re giving out chocolate mousse, and I saved you some!”

Casey grinned down at her little sister’s ecstatic expression and knew that this huge burst of energy wasn’t going to last very long.

The party was in full swing. It wasn’t as calm and formal as it had been when she’d left since a majority of the adults had gotten up from their tables and congregated on the dance floor in front of the DJ’s booth. Casey had been old enough to know that some of the red faces she saw laughing and smiling weren’t just because of the conversations but rather because of the x-amount of glasses of wine or champagne they’d all consumed.

One particular red face stood out from the crowd though, and Casey knew for a fact that this man’s face wasn’t red because of any alcohol. He was in one of his _moods_. Casey and Lizzie’s father strode up until he stood right in front of his daughters.

“Casey, where have you been?” he demanded. It was irritation and anger that Casey heard in his tone, not worry.

“I just went out to get some air, Daddy,” she answered meekly as Lizzie pressed closer against her side.

Casey vaguely noticed that Derek had shut the doors and was now standing with his back pressed against them. He probably couldn’t really move much since the buffet table was to his left, and he couldn’t move past the family without brushing up against the girls.

The girls’ father sternly  stared down at his eldest. “You know better than to go anywhere by yourself.”

She did, and under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have, but the way he and her mom had been beginning to frown and whisper to each other, the thirteen year-old had felt she had no other choice. There had been too many people around her; it was suffocating.

She would’ve said something to that effect too, but _someone_ had decided to butt into the conversation. As if it was so _difficult_ to _duck under the table_ and _crawl away_. “She wasn’t by herself.”

Casey closed her eyes and stifled a sigh and a grimace.

“Who are you?” her father asked coldly. She could practically _hear_ his eyes narrowing and his eyebrows pulling together in a dark, intimidating frown.

“I’m her friend,” Derek answered confidently.

Casey rolled her eyes behind her closed lids and opened them when Derek’s proud statement was met with complete silence. The older man looked livid, and when Casey turned to look at Derek, he looked to be on the verge of bolting out the doors or bracing himself for her dad to start yelling at him.

But Dennis McDonald never yelled. He worked too hard and came home too late to ever have the energy to yell. So when he was mad, his voice remained low and even, but the anger could still be heard loud and clear. “Oh, really? Casey, is that—”

“Dennis?” Nora McDonald came up behind her husband and spotted her daughters. “Oh, Casey, there you are. How was the deck?”

Dennis spun around to stare at his dark-haired wife. “You knew where she was?”

“Of course I did,” Nora answered indignantly, her soft demeanor momentarily marred by her scowl. “You know Casey wouldn’t run off without telling anyone where she’d be going.”

“So you let me worry? Why didn’t you say anything?” Dennis asked with a glare.

Nora frowned. “You didn’t _ask_. Casey, honey, come back to the table. Lizzie saved you some dessert.”

She brushed past Dennis and ushered her two daughters back to their seats. Casey glanced back to see Derek give her a small smile and a parting wave.

The two of them didn’t see much of each other for the rest of the night except for a few brief glances from across the ballroom. He was hanging around two other kids whom Casey assumed to be his siblings. One was a little boy about Lizzie’s age, and the other was a little girl about three or four years-old in an adorable little purple dress. His little brother trailed after him in a manner that could only be described as hero worship as Derek himself held onto his little sister’s hands as she attempted to dance. Casey smiled as she watched them, but when Derek looked up and met her gaze, she paled and turned around—but not before she saw the smirk cross his face again.

Surprisingly enough, he came up to her once. He traversed the ballroom dance floor and stopped right in front of her.

“Hello,” he said awkwardly, but he still managed to have enough courage to look her straight in the eye.

For a second, she thought he was about to ask her to dance, and she was immediately launched into a daydream of him waltzing her around the floor to a romantic serenade. The fantasy ended when she saw his eyes shift to her right where she knew her father was probably staring him down. Derek dropped his gaze and walked past her toward the dessert buffet to grab a cup of ice cream. When she turned back to her parents, Casey saw that Nora was looking at her with a small smile and a spoonful of mousse halfway to her mouth. The thirteen year-old blushed in embarrassment under the scrutiny of her mother—though she had no idea why.

When Lizzie began to droop, Dennis and Nora decided it was time to turn in. Dennis scooped up Lizzie, and Nora and Casey stood and followed him out the ballroom. That was when someone bumped into Casey’s shoulder and pushed a small slip of paper into her hand.

Turning, Casey glimpsed a flash of brown hair disappearing between two obese ladies who were trying (and failing) to do the Macarena. The scene reminded her disturbingly of Jell-O being shaken. When she finally managed to tear her eyes away from the gelatinous display, Casey looked down and unfolded the paper. Derek had scrawled a message with what looked to be the sharp corner of a bar of chocolate.

Resourceful.

 _Keener_ , he’d written _, meet me at the garden-thing tomorrow after lunch._

**~oOo~**

“It’s called a _conservatory_ , I,” I said, coming up behind him.

He jumped in surprise again, but then he lunged forward and clamped his hand over her mouth. I nearly shrieked and punched his ear.

“Keep it _down_ , keener,” he hissed, craning his neck over the rose bushes to see if anyone else was around. “We’re _dead_ if they know we’re in here.”

I finally managed to slap his hand off her mouth and wipe her lips with the back of her hand. “Why?” she whispered, humoring his paranoia. “The door was unlocked, and there weren’t any signs to keep us out.”

He smirked and reached into his pocket to pull out two rigid wires. “That’s because _I_ unlocked the doors for you, princess, and the sign is on the other door.”

Her mouth dropped. “You _picked_ the lock?”

He popped the collar of his polo shirt arrogantly and shrugged. “What can I say? I’m charming, handsome, and talented in _so_ many different ways.”

She wanted to be all huffy and indignant at his blatant disregard of the crucial tidbit that breaking and entering was, in fact, a _felony_ , but she couldn’t help but be impressed. He was a teenage James Bond in a green polo shirt and jeans. Not that she was planning on letting him know she thought so. His ego was gargantuan enough to not need any more stroking on her part. So she just rolled her eyes and picked at invisible dirt on her yellow sundress.

“Why’d you want me to meet you here anyway?” she asked, studying a half-bloomed rosebud lit up by the afternoon sunlight that filtered in through the greenhouse roof.

He scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t know. I just wanted to get away from my parents for a bit, and it looked like you kinda wanted the same thing last night since your dad…”

She bit her lip and continued to stare at the flower. “Yeah, I guess.”

They stood there in an awkward silence for maybe twenty more seconds before he spoke again. “So where are you from?”

I turned and started to walk past him, admiring the partially-bloomed flowers all around her. “Toronto. And you?”

“London,” he replied, falling into step with her.

I whipped around to face him in shock. _“England?!”_

He chortled at her hopeful, excited expression. “ _No_ , Ontario. In case it hasn’t dawned on you, I don’t exactly have a British accent.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “There can be people who live in England that don’t have accents, you know. I’ve read about it.”

I scoffed and shook his head, brushing past her to keep walking further into the conservatory. “Keener.”

I glared at the back of his head. “Jerk.”

Then he turned back, and they both grinned at each other. But as I stepped forward, she missed the small puddle of water on the smooth, tile floor and slipped. She very nearly did a split, but I managed to grab onto her and keep her from falling. However, in his effort to pull her back onto solid footing, he wrenched her toward him so that their chests slammed together, and they swayed threateningly.

At this point, they were both blushing like fools, so I tried to take a step away from him. Since all the blood had rushed to her face, she forgot that she was stepping back into the puddle and nearly slipped and fell…again.

But he caught her…again.

“You,” he breathed against her face, “are _such_ a klutz.”

She scowled and pushed away from him, making sure to walk _around_ the puddle. Something warm and soft suddenly wrapped around her hand, and she looked down to see her fingers intertwined with I’s.

“What are you _doing_?” she choked out, the blush crashing back up into her cheeks.

He smirked and continued to walk until he was practically dragging her along behind him. “You’re bound to step into another puddle. The sprinklers turned off right when I got here. This way, if you fall, I’ll have a better hold on you.”

She ducked her head and smiled a little, involuntarily squeezing his hand.

He had a hold on her _for sure_.

They spent the rest of the afternoon meandering around the conservatory, ducking and giggling behind bushes when they thought someone was coming. They talked about everything—debated the purpose of video games, the pros and cons of wearing a seatbelt (since he kept insisting it could very easily snap someone’s neck depending on the force of the impact—which was untrue, by the way), and their siblings.

His brother was named Edwin, and he really was Lizzie’s age. His sister I was four and already insanely obsessed with the color purple. I told him about Lizzie and how she was starting to act more like a tomboy as she started getting more and more into sports. Then he told her about how he loved to play hockey, and she told him how she loved to dance. They walked and held hands until it was almost dinner, and they had to find their respective families.

I didn’t care that there was only a 2% chance they’d ever see each other again. For the remaining two days on that cruise, she lived a fairy tale. Despite the fact that she’d never actually read _Romeo and Juliet_ , she compared hers and I’s “relationship” to the famous couple—the way they snuck around, hiding and whispering behind rosebushes because their families didn’t want them together.

Face it: they were thirteen year-olds. What morally stable, right-minded parents would let their thirteen year-olds run around together alone and unsupervised?

But it’s not as if their parents really did have much to worry about after all. All the two ever did was talk and hold hands. They never even _hugged_ let alone... _kissed_. They didn’t _dare_ stray into that territory because… Well, they never had to talk about it, imply it, or allude to it—they were just never going to see each other again, so there was no point in starting something like that. Yes, I lived a mere three hours away, but neither of their families were ever going to spring for a visit. This was their summer fling—their thirteen year-old, obscenely innocent version of a summer fling.

But he had quite a hold on her.

For years afterward, I would still remember the warmth of his hand around hers. She remembered the way he brushed away her tears with the backs of his fingers when they stood on the grand staircase to say goodbye the night before they had to disembark.

Sad thing was that she didn’t think either of them knew the other’s last names.

When she returned to Toronto, the first thing I did was borrow _Romeo and Juliet_ from the local library. Once can imagine her reaction once she realized that the epic love story was, in fact, a _tragedy_. What made things even worse was that Romeo and Juliet didn’t just get gypped out of a happy ending—they _died_. Then it reminded her of that _Titanic_ movie, and one can continue to imagine her chagrin at the parallels: star-crossed lovers meeting on a cruise liner only to have their happy endings viciously ripped away from them.

It couldn’t have come at a worse time because Dennis and Nora finally made a decision. Their attempts at rekindling their romance during a family cruise was an epic failure, so they finally reached a consensus—the one word that could break the heart of a thirteen year-old hopeless romantic.

Divorce.

I had wanted to put I and her father in the same category when she realized there must have been some sort of cosmic relation to the fact that both their names began with a “D” and they’d both essentially broken her heart in some form. But she couldn’t label I like that. He didn’t _intentionally_ do anything hurtful to her. She wouldn’t say he was her first love because not only would that be too sappy and romantic, but because it simply wasn’t true. It was barely a summer fling, but there had been a connection between the two of them—a connection that even after they parted ways, never broke.

She occasionally courted a fantasy where they’d snuck off the boat and ran away together, swept up in a whirlwind romance that spanned the continents. They’d eventually married, settled down, had children, grew old, and then related to their descendants their epic love story. But she eventually grew tired of waiting for something that would never come, pining for something imaginary to be real, wondering what could have been. She knew that her fantasies were her coping mechanisms for dealing with the divorce. She couldn’t have her father, so she wanted I.

Two years later, she didn’t think she’d get what she wanted…in a horrible, twisted version. It was like the cosmos decided to slap her in the face and burst out laughing.

She got I back.

Only this time, he was supposed to be her stepbrother.


	2. "Once Upon a Dream" - Sleeping Beauty Soundtrack

_Naturally_ , Casey whined and complained.

Why would her own mother—her own _flesh and blood_ —abduct and drive her two hours to some high school in _London, Ontario_ under the pretenses of a dentist appointment? Why could she not have brought a change of clothes so her daughter wouldn’t have to traipse around a _public high school_ in her _school uniform_? Why were _they_ the ones who had to uproot their lives in Toronto and replant it in some random city?

All of these questions and their variations comprised the plaintive babbling that spewed from fifteen year-old Casey McDonald’s mouth.

However what occupied her _mind_ was that they were indeed in _London, Ontario._ _London, Ontario_ , ladies and gentlemen. London, Ontario.

She hadn’t forgotten Derek. After all, what were the chances of her mother meeting a man who just happened to have _three_ children named _Derek, Edwin,_ and _Marti_? What were the chances that there was more than one _Derek_ in _London, Ontario_ who had _two younger siblings_ named _Edwin_ and _Marti_?

Hm?

Hmm?

_Hmmm?!_

The little episode Casey had in the car was not because her mother was essentially ruining her life—though that played a small part in the bigger picture. She was panicking because… _Derek._

 _Derek_ was _here_ , and he was about to give her a _tour_ of _his_ high school. A high school she would be harangued into going to, of course, but it would still be _his_ high school. _He_ would be there. They would be interacting at home and away from it. They would be classmates.

 _Derek was here_.

All right, it was true that she wasn’t 100% sure it was really _her_ Derek since she had yet to come face-to-face with the boy. She’d met Edwin (in all his gaseous glory) and Marti (in all her purple princess glory), but Derek had remained this elusive, indistinct, shadowy figure in the corner of her eye. A shadow who vaguely resembled a thirteen year-old she knew once upon a time—once upon a _dream_.

There could only be _two_ reasons why she hadn’t “met” him yet.

One: he knew it was her, and since the circumstances of their re-acquaintance would necessitate them to behave as _siblings_ instead of… _whatever_ they had been gravitating toward before, he couldn’t possibly bring himself to meet her in fear of the fact that his dormant feelings for her would suddenly rise up like a tidal wave and sweep her off her feet in some passionate, hormone-induced, highly-inappropriate display.

Or two: he’d completely forgotten about her and thought he would just be meeting some random girl named Casey who happened to be a complete nerd and therefore refused to associate himself with such a character.

Those seemed to be the only plausible excuses as to why he was either feigning sickness and/or prior engagement to avoid her all this time.

So when she was approached by a teenage boy wearing a baseball hat backwards with a voice that already made him sound like a complete dimwit, Casey sighed in relief. This couldn’t _possibly_ be _her_ Derek. _Her_ Derek was smart and witty…and definitely didn’t refer to himself in the third person. Sure, _this_ Derek was sweet and kind of slow—in a very _endearing_ way!—but there was no fun banter, no “keener-jerk” reactions, and there was definitely no _smirk_.

But despite all that, Casey figured that things wouldn’t be so bad. George was nice, and it seemed to rub off on his son. She could already picture the nice brother/sister bond between herself and _this_ Derek.

Until he very nearly asked her out.

Oh, _yes_ , Casey may have come from an all-girls institution, but she hadn’t been living under a _rock_ all this time. _This_ Derek mentioned boyfriends and smoothly transitioned into, “Well, if you ever move to London, maybe you and I could, um—”

We were then— _fortunately_ or _unfortunately_ , she wasn’t quite sure anymore—interrupted by another teenage boy their age with _familiar brown hair_ who introduced himself as “Ralph.” However his hair color either didn’t quite register in her mind or she was just too offended because the jerk up and butted into the conversation saying he need to speak with Derek alone. And when she tried to make acquaintances with him (since a good sister would try and get to know her brother’s friends so as to maintain a civilized and friendly atmosphere), she was rebuffed and told to take a hint! And when she blurted out an offended _excuse me_ , he _actually_ excused her and tossed some money onto the table so she could grab herself some sort of _tater cobbler_. She’d shoved herself out of her seat as primly as she could, threw a retort in his face, and walked away with his money.

It should’ve dawned on her at that point. Looking back, she realized how stupid and dense she’d been for not seeing it sooner. In fact, she was _still_ ashamed that she didn’t see it sooner.

Thankfully, her brain rebooted itself and stuttered back into intelligence when “Ralph” walked into the restaurant that she was supposed to meet her mother, George, and her new stepbrother.

As she saw him stalk toward her, she couldn’t help but hear the familiar song playing in the recesses of her mind, like background music to the scene: _I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream. I know you, the gleam in your eyes is so familiar, a gleam. Yet I know it’s true that visions are seldom all they seem, but if I know you, I know what you’d do—you’ll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream…_

She never thought that stupid song could ever apply to her life, but there it was. Right on the dot; it hit the bull’s eye.

The gleam in those chocolate brown eyes (the ones that she didn’t get a good look at back in the cafeteria because he flat-out refused to make eye contact), the sharp, biting wit (that really should’ve been the prime indicator that this _jerk_ was _her_ Derek), the arrogant, self-absorbed comments (that were merely for exaggerated amusement before but were now legitimately for the narcissistic purpose of self-glorification), but most of all…the _Smirk_ ™.

And the song continued to ring true. Visions really _were_ seldom all they seemed, and if she _had_ known Derek, they would’ve picked up where they left off—even thought that point was fairly nebulous in itself.

So she apparently _didn’t_ know Derek. Or at least, she didn’t know him _anymore_. He wasn’t the same boy he had been two years ago.

She supposed that she could blame it on the divorce he must’ve gone through as well. That was why she’d had so much hope that they’d get along; they’d both had to suffer through the extremes of deafening fights and stone-cold silences. And aside from trying to stomach those ordeals, they had to shield their younger siblings from the same thing. She thought that maybe they’d be kindred spirits.

 _But apparently not_.

During that disastrous Operation Disengagement process, Casey could tell she and Derek had some sort of weird telepathic exchange underneath the actual, verbal conversation/sparring match they were having. It was a mutual, silent agreement that what happened between them two years ago was a summer fling between two entirely different people. He made it sufficiently clear that he felt this way and that she should follow suit. The Derek and Casey on that ship should be repressed and forgotten.

It should not be spoken about. It should not be implied. It should not be alluded to. It should not be given second, third, or fourth thoughts.

 _Her_ Derek was gone. In his place was _Derek Venturi_ , a fifteen year-old who seemingly hated her guts for absolutely no reason. So when the McDonalds moved in with the Venturis, it wasn’t hard for the two eldest teens to transition into a love-hate sibling relationship that could not be compared to warring cats and dogs because the simile was just too tame.

By the end of her second month living in that house, it felt like _her_ Derek had just been some distant fantasy. She practically forgot about him since _this_ Derek pissed her off to the point of utter thoughtlessness and speechlessness where all she could bring herself to do was split his name in a shriek: “DER-EK!”

Of course, he had his moments in which she saw that old gleam in his eye whenever they fought. She caught fleeting glimpses of the sweetly mischievous boy she once thought she knew whenever he played with Marti or…or when he did something completely out of character like _help her_.

But those moments were immediately dashed against the rocks because he’d follow it up with something immature and/or stupid to ruin the moment and re-establish his cool-guy persona.

The only thing that managed to survive their two vastly different relationships was:

“JERK!”

“KEENER!”

The prick made it his hobby to piss her off, and he did it very well. He’d prank her for no reason, and he’d challenge her for the most trivial things. For every clumsy thing she did (horrendously embarrassing or hardly noticeable), he’d point, laugh, and call her “Klutzilla” instead of grabbing her hand and steadying her like he’d done before. He’d leave his rancid hockey gear lying around the house—not to piss off his father and stepmother—but to piss _her_ off.

For months after that cruise, Casey dreamed of Derek, and she’d wake up feeling hopeful and happy. For months after she moved into the Venturi home, she’d wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat because Derek was strangling her in her nightmares.

Once upon a dream _indeed_.

~oOo~

When George Venturi came home and announced that he was seeing a woman named Nora in Toronto, Derek was aware enough of his dad’s relationship with his mom to be legitimately happy for the man—not that he let it show, of course. Abby Venturi was a nice woman, and Derek loved her dearly…but there was a reason why George had won the custody battle. Even if they weren’t supposed to pick sides, Derek knew where his loyalties lay, and that was with the man who’d stuck with his children. And he deserved to be happy.

Besides, Nora sounded nice and genuinely cared about his bumbling idiot of a dad and his family, and since she had kids of her own, Derek figured she had enough motherly instincts to be a good stepmom to Marti and Edwin. Mothering Derek himself was out of the question, of course.

Then George sat him down in the living room one night and told him about Nora’s two daughters. Lizzie was the younger one, about Ed’s age, and Casey was the older one who was about his age…

Casey.

 _Casey_.

Only one thing flashed through his mind like a giant advertisement: “WARNING!”

But he pushed it to the back of his mind because what were the chances of there being just _one_ Casey in Toronto with a younger sister named Lizzie? Toronto was a big city, and “Casey” and “Lizzie” were common enough names.

So Derek sat back in his recliner, wondering if this particular Casey was as hot as the other one. Then George brought Nora home to meet the kids, and as soon as Derek laid eyes on the woman, the giant advertisement’s message morphed from “WARNING!” to “SHIT!”

Oh, yeah, Nora looked _nice_. She had a sweet smile, a cute haircut—definitely a MILF. But it was _his_ Casey’smom—the one who’d saved them from the tongue-lashing Casey’s dad was about to unleash on the both of them. She had longer hair then, but she still looked the same. She obviously didn’t recognize Derek, and he hardly expected her to. There was such a _drastic_ difference between thirteen year-old Derek and the Canadian Adonis he’d become.

When she showed a picture of her two kids, though, the Canadian Adonis fell off his pedestal, choked on his soda, and spat it out over the table because _there she was_. Take out the bad haircut, the retainer, and the super dorky-ness that seemed to have latched on and infected the poor girl, and it was her. It was _Casey_.

The blue-eyed, dark brown-haired, klutzy keener who’d become his best friend in a time span of two days. The one who’d cried on the staircase wishing neither of them had to go. The one who gave him a legitimate science lesson that he’d actually listened to (she taught him the different methods of how to plant trees—like _marcotting_ ). The one who gripped his hand for dear life every time they walked near a puddle in that conservatory.

It was her. God, he could tell it was her even if he was standing from a hundred meters away.

So when he figured out that his dad and Nora were intentionally keeping their two eldest kids apart (again), Derek didn’t know whether to be relieved or pissed off. He didn’t know how he was supposed to act around her—maybe she forgot all about him. (Unlikely since no one forgets Derek Venturi.) But…maybe she just wouldn’t be able to recognize him…that was a possibility. Nora hadn’t, but then again, he and Nora had only seen him a few times on the cruise and had never actually _interacted_ with him.

Either way, Derek needed to figure out a way to make their eventual meeting less _complicated_. So the night before Nora was supposed to drag Casey out to London and for a Derek Venturi Tour of Thompson High in the hope that Casey would be more willing to move to London, Derek stayed up almost half the night going into full-on devious mastermind mode to come up with a plan that would keep him from jumping this girl and scaring the ever-loving hell out of her.

See, he _wanted_ to his dad to marry Nora. The poor guy needed the lovin’ of a good woman, and the only person who seemed up to the job was Nora. Plus it helped that Marti was completely attached already. Lizzie and Edwin laid eyes on each other and immediately became partners in crime, so there wasn’t much to worry about on that front either. Everything would be fine.

Except for Derek and Casey. If she still had any feelings for the thirteen year-old Derek, then how would she react when she saw the fifteen year-old Derek? The poor girl would have a nervous breakdown as he soon as he said “hi.” All right, this wouldn’t be a problem under normal circumstances, but this situation was far from normal already.

They were potential stepsiblings! One could not jump on potential stepsibs! Oh, yeah, sure, you _can_ —he looked it up and everything. No blood relation and all that, but _regardless_! Derek Venturi could not have a hot stepsister for whom he use to have f…fff…(damn it)…fffeee…(come on, Venturi!)… _FEELINGS_ for! That would be awkward beyond all reason! He’d be a social pariah! His rep would go up in flames!

So he saw only one solution: the two of them could not get along. There was no way. If they got along—if everything was copacetic in Derek-and-Casey-Land—things would go south _very quickly_ —literally, figuratively, in all senses of the phrase. So he would have to make her hate him—which means, he’d be attempting the _impossible_ —so there would be no room for her to have feelings for him. Feelings that he would most definitely wind up reciprocating.

Okay, sure, it would piss her off. Sure, she’d probably hate him so much that it would make his cheating off her homework and tests that much more difficult. Sure, he’d have to pretend to hate the prospect of her moving in. Sure, she’d end up bringing home her boyfriends—who weren’t him. Sure, his forehead and his desk would become great sparring partners.

But it would be an uncomplicated relationship. He’d piss her off; she’d hate him. All would be well.

So he set it up so that Ralph would pose as “Derek,” but the dumbass made “Derek” sound like some lovable idiot, and Casey—in her hot little schoolgirl uniform—found it _cute_. They were _getting along_. They were getting along so well, in fact, that Ralph would’ve asked her out if Derek hadn’t jumped in.

And Operation Make-Casey-Hate-Derek was a go.

For the next three and-a-half years, he became the bane of her existence. He’d prank her and piss her off. He’d slipped up here and there, but he managed to keep his cool and get back on track with a  well-timed insult or prank.

He was getting so good at playing Derek the Jerk (not that it was really a far cry from the Derek he actually was) that it just became second nature. He pretended to hate her guts so she wouldn’t have to pretend to hate his. At first it had just been a courtesy thing…then he realized she couldn’t lie worth _shit_ , so it was a good thing he took that out of her hands.

Despite all that, though…she was still _his_ Casey.

Head. Desk. _Bang_.

He’d admit it—he was a player. Girls would flank him left and right on a daily basis, and he wasn’t about to do anything to change that. He was Derek Venturi—if you wanted him, his adoring fans came as a package deal. But before Casey showed up in his life again, it wasn’t that bad. _After_ she moved in… Well, George had to sit him down and lecture him about thinking with the lump of meat in his skull and not the one dangling between his legs.

Truthfully, he _had_ been using his brain. A small, nearly-subconscious part of it wanted to make Casey jealous, but the primary motive was to distract himself so he wouldn’t dwell on the fact that aside from a bedroom wall, there was something between him and Casey—chemistry.

It wasn’t _complete_ torture living with her. He could check her out all he wanted even if he had to feign disgust. He got to see all the different sides of her that her other little boyfriends never got to see. Arguing with her made him substantially smarter since he had to keep looking in the dictionary to figure out her insults. He got into _Queen’s_ , for crying out loud!

It’s like she was this annoying light he could never turn off—annoying and bright as hell, but she still managed to light things up and—OH, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

The only person who managed to actually divert his attention was Sally, but that hardly turned out into a happily-ever-after. He’d hoped that maybe the sight of Casey with a boyfriend would desensitize him and bring out the brotherly side that he reserved for Marti and sometimes Lizzie, but when she brought home guys, it wasn’t _overprotectiveness_ that made his eye twitch. He would deny it to the ends of the earth, but he was jealous, damnit.

He mastered the art of background checks and tailing people because of her and her ridiculous taste in guys—with the exception of Sam, of course. (But things nearly when DEFCON-1 when he accidentally slipped up and brought in the male code.) Max was a pretty decent guy, but he was a _football player_. _GAG_. Not only that, but he singlehandedly managed to turn Casey— _Casey!_ —into an airhead. And _Truman_ —good God, _freaking_ Truman! He was like a slimier, scummier, asshole-y version of Derek that he figured Casey tried to settle with since she couldn’t have the real thing.

And she gave him a second chance. She. Gave. Him. A. Second. Chance.

What. The. _Hell?!_

They got back together after he _cheated_ on her! _His_ Casey would’ve had the sense to never date the degenerate in the first place! But it’s not like he could talk either. After all, he dated Emily. The first fake date that had been in retaliation to Casey and Sam should’ve been the prime indicator that Derek and Emily would not have been a good idea, but then he went and became her freaking _boyfriend_.

But everyone has their stupid moments. He rectified it, of course, by dumping her before they left for Casey’s grandma’s place at the lake. There had always been something about that girl that irked him anyway. His reasoning, of course, was that they’d both be at different colleges, so they parted on fairly good terms. Or at least, he _thought_ they did.

She ended up bitching out on Casey, and he didn’t bother to find out the reason why. Derek just called her up, called her out, and told her to never speak to either of them again unless it was to apologize. And even then, Emily would have to do some major ass-kissing. And then she made the mistake of demanding to know why he was jumping to Casey’s rescue _again_.

So it was a tearless goodbye when he, Casey, and Sam said their final farewells to Emily when they went off to Queen’s. She would be going off to Toronto, so coupled with the fact that Vicky and Fiona lived there, both Derek and Casey now had an excuse to _never, ever_ visit Toronto again.

But Derek had high hopes for Queen’s. No longer would there be an audience to convince, no longer would there be standards and reputations to live up to, no longer would there be _parents_.

He wasn’t gonna seduce her, of course. He was just gonna…taper things out and let their natural chemistry smooth out their normally-rocky relationship. And if things panned out from there…so be it.

Because he was a little tired of simply walking away from their fights; he wanted to do the exact opposite. Because he was done doing nothing about the fact that she would prance around in these _outfits_ and flash him these smug little _smirks_. Because he was done simply being the annoying stepbrother who managed to bring out more passion in her by stealing the remote than any of her boyfriends combined. He wanted _more_.


	3. "Get It Right" - Lea Michele

“All right, that’s it!”

“What?”

“Out! Now!”

_“What?!”_

“You heard me! Get out!”

“No! This is _my_ room! _You_ get out!”

“Get your ass off the bed right now!”

“ _No_! What makes you think you can just barge—”

Derek stomped inside, his footsteps thundering even in spite of the fluffy carpeting. Casey was just so shocked and infuriated that she couldn’t even react when he ripped off her violet blankets (specially picked out by Marti), scooped her up, threw her over his shoulder, and stormed back out of her room. She finally recovered and started shrieking and railing against his back as he strode out into the hall and toward the kitchen. She even yanked on his hair for good measure, but it didn’t even phase him.

“DER-EK! Put me down! What are you _doing_?!”

“I’m done with your moping!” he snapped decisively. “All the little black clouds floating around your head is harshin’ my mellow, you _know_ that my mellow should _not_ be harshed!”

“Derek, I couldn’t care less about your alleged _mellow_! I _demand_ that you put me—”

And put her down he did. He unceremoniously _dumped_ her onto one of the maple wood chairs of their kitchen. He was fortunate in that Casey had bought padding for these things because if he’d thumped her down on an unpadded chair, it would be his own bony butt that would be flying out the window.

“You’re such an insensitive _jerk_!” she shrieked, attempting to jump out of the seat to grab some utensil to start attack him with—preferably the butcher’s knife. “I’m the one crying, and you’re complaining about how—”

Two shot glasses were suddenly slammed down onto the table in front of her, effectively derailing her train of thought and forcing her to jump into: “Der-ek! I’m not going _drink_ _away_ my problems!”

He ignored her as he headed to the cupboards and brought out a bottle of what looked to be bourbon. However she _still_ didn’t get up—just glared back and forth between the back of his head and the shot glasses in front of her.

“We’re not even nineteen yet!” she protested. “Where did you get that?!”

“Chill out, princess,” he said, trying to placate her. “They were housewarming gifts from the Dorseys.”

“The _Dorseys_?” she echoed incredulously. “You mean the couple we met on the day we moved in who were so drunk out of their minds that they legitimately thought we were _Sonny and Cher_?”

“Appropriate housewarming gifts then, huh?” He smirked and set the bottle down in front of Casey before yanking open the freezer and pulling out the carton of rocky road ice cream.

“For crying out loud, D, _what are you doing_?” she sighed exasperatedly, clenching her hands on her lap.

He walked to the silverware drawer and pulled out two spoons before finally coming back to the table, setting the carton down next to the bourbon, pulling out a chair, sliding it beside her, and then finally straddling it. He sighed as he popped the tops off the bourbon bottle and the ice cream carton.

“I’m tired of hearing your pathetic weeping, and I’m tired of watching you slouch around the apartment with your hair all scraggly like that chick in that new movie, _The Grudge—_ ”

She gawked at him furiously. “I do not have scraggly hair! Do _not_ compare me to a _horror movie_!”

He ignored me and continued, “—so this is how we’re gonna settle this, Space-Case, and make sure you don’t make a habit of moping around the apartment. Otherwise we’re gonna end up doing this over and over, and you’ll wind up becoming an alcoholic.”

“What are you—”

He winced and grimaced before cutting her off. “You’re gonna tell me what the hell is wrong with you.”

Casey stared at him, dumbstruck. She vacillated between slapping him in the face and throwing her arms around his neck. She settled for just sitting there and staring at him like he’d just vomited half his brain. (But she knew better. Derek had no brain to vomit.)

“Uh, what are the bourbon and ice cream for? Are you going to make the malt from hell?”

A smirk of the evil variety replaced the grimace on his face. “For every negative thing you say about me or yourself or for every positive thing you say about any of your exes—with the exception of Sam, of course—you have to take a shot of bourbon.”

Her mouth dropped, but he cut her off before she could argue.

“And for every legitimate complaint you make—that Truman was a jackass, that he should crawl back into a septic tank where he and his kind belong, or that you really do have shi—”

“Derek, please stop swearing.” Ever since they’d left London, he’d been taking advantage of the absence of innocent ears and cursing up a storm.

“— _shitty_ taste in guys—you get a shot of ice cream.”

“But saying that I have _bad_ taste in guys goes against your first clause in which I don’t say anything negative about myself,” she countered.

“No,” he responded. “By saying you have shitty taste in guys, you’re implying that the guys you’ve dated are shit and are therefore insulting _them_ rather than yourself.”

“That doesn’t make sense. That’s the complete oppo—”

“Say that you have shitty taste in men.”

“What? No—”

“Say it.”

“No.”

“Say it.”

“No.”

“SAY IT!”

“ _FINE_! I have bad taste in men!”

He smiled, scooped out a spoonful of rocky road, and promptly stuffed it into her mouth just as she heaved an exasperated sigh. She glowered at him but chose to relish the ice cream instead of ramming the spoon into his eye like she originally planned to.

“My life is just a game for you, isn’t it?” she asked wearily when he snatched the spoon back as soon as she was finished.

He held his hand to his chest and looked scandalized. “What?! How could you say such atrocious—” He dropped the act and grinned. “Yeah, yeah, it really is.”

She rolled her eyes, adjusted her oversize sweater, crossed her arms over her chest, and then leaned back against the seat. Since when did _Derek_   know words like “atrocious?”

“Oh, come on, Case,” he whined at her pointed refusal to talk. “If you’re gonna subject me to your vagina monologues—”

“Der-ek!”

“—then I may as well get a crack out of it. Besides, it’s a good method to keep you from tearing yourself down, am I right?”

She continued to glare his use of such vulgar language, but he actually had a point. Illegal though it may be, she wouldn’t exactly be running around _outside_ the apartment. Literally _no one else_ would know about this little…lapse in judgment. And it seemed like he was genuinely trying to help her—albeit in a skewed manner. But it wouldn’t be _Derek_ if it wasn’t skewed. It was a fairly good plan, after all.She supposed his strategy skills had been honed from pranking her all those years, and so he’d finally managed to come up with a _credible_ plan for a _legitimate_ cause.

Who knew he had it in him? She seriously considered calling the family and relaying Derek’s new achievements: his vocabulary had finally broadened and his diabolical deviousness had finally been harnessed to _benefit_ instead of _destroy_.

Then again, they may not believe her. Oh, she should record this on a camcorder.

He, on the other hand, seemed pleased that her contemplative expression was a positive reaction to his plan since he said, “See? You know I make sense. So get on with it. Why are you so upset?” Then he paused, and his expression darkened. “Please don’t tell me it really _is_ about Truman.”

Casey sighed and reclined her head to stare up at the ceiling. “Yes.”

“Okay,” he announced, “one shot of bourbon!”

“What?!” She grabbed his hand as he reached for the bottle. “No! All I did was say ‘yes!’ I didn’t say anything self-deprecating!”

He grimaced like he’d just eaten a clump of dirt. “The fact that you’re moping about _Truman_ is bad enough!”

“Der-ek! You’re the one who wanted me to talk about it! God, you’re such a jerk!”

He threw his head back and laughed. “HAH! Now you _have_ to take a shot!”

“What?! No! You—”

 _Why, God, why?_ she prayed up to heaven. _What did I do that was so wrong you had to punish me by throwing this…_ creature _…into my life?_

He poured a shot and held it out to her, smirking. “You called me a jerk. Take the shot.”

I groaned and grimaced. “Come on, Derek. Can’t you just let me off with a warning or something? Call it strike one?”

He shook his head, his smug smirk growing. “Nope. Take the shot, Casey.”

She made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat and snatched the glass out of his hand. Grimacing in disgust one last time, she threw the shot back and nearly spat it out all over Derek but managed to keep it down. It seared her taste buds and set her throat on fire. She gagged as Derek roared with laughed, but just when she was about to chuck the glass at his head, he held out a spoonful of ice cream. She snatched it out of his hand and shoved it into her mouth, letting the chocolatey glob melt on her tongue to soothe and saturate her mouth.

“Consider that your warning,” he chortled.

She glared and made a move to stand up, but his hand shot out and grabbed her elbow gently. She turned to see serious chocolate eyes staring up at her and was instantly transported back onto _The Ship_.

“I’m serious, Case,” he said levelly. “Sit down.”

So she sat. What else was she going to do?

“Why were you crying about Truman this time?” he asked calmly—no more laughing or smirking. His eyes were serious, and his mouth was set in a straight line. She didn’t quite like this face. She always complained about him not being serious enough, and whenever he actually managed to bone up, she felt proud of him. But for some reason, it didn’t sit well with her this time.

So she had to do it: she smirked and answered, “Because Truman is scum.”

He smiled and scooped three spoonfuls of ice cream into the clean shot glass and handed it to her.

He rested his arms on the back of his chair as he watched her eat. “So if Truman is scum, why were you crying about him?”

The smirk vanished from her face as she finished off the shot of ice cream and set the empty glass back on the table. “It’s not really about what Truman did to me again. I’m over it.”

“Then why are you crying? Were you reading _The Notepad_ again? Ever since you, Nora, and Lizzie saw that movie four months ago, you’ve been reading the book over and over again, and I really think that shit’s gonna wear out your tear ducts—”

She shot him a longsuffering look. “You know it’s called _The Notebook_ , Derek, and, no, that’s not why I was upset.”

“Did you look at yourself in the mirror without makeup on again?”

“Der-ek!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop!”

She scowled at him for a second longer before crossing her legs Indian-style and resting her hands on her knees.

“You gonna start meditating or something?” he sighed, feeling compelled to prompt her with, “If Truman is scum, and you’re over him then…?”

Casey sighed. “It’s because you were right.”

He started scooping her more ice cream.

“I feel like my love life is just this capsizing ship, but I can’t stop it or even get away from it,” she continued.

He snorted and handed her the glass. “Your heart will _not_ go on.”

She ignored his reference and took the shot. “I know that as far as you’re concerned, I’ve only had three actual boyfriends, and that hardly seems like cause to complain. But it’s like they’re progressively getting worse. I mean, Sam’s a great guy, and at least we ended that amicably and we still get along today. Then Max came into the picture, and at first it seemed like things might actually last, but I didn’t even realize that being with him ultimately turned me into someone I never wanted to be until I developed an _allergy_ , for goodness sake.”

He snorted in amusement and refilled her shot of ice cream. “That was _funny_. You _actually_ became _allergic_ to your _boyfriend_. That’s gotta go down in the books somewhere.”

She rolled her eyes as she took the glass from him again.“And we all know how Truman—”

“—is a jackass,” he finished, taking a spoonful of ice cream for himself.

For once, she didn’t protest his language. “It’s like everything went downhill after Sam. Max was actually a good boyfriend, okay? And he didn’t _intentionally_ change me, but—”

“Okay, just because he was a good boyfriend doesn’t mean he was a good influence. He’s not as bad as Truman Scum-of-the-Earth French, but he wasn’t good for you either.”

She balked at him.

“ _Shrek_ , on the other hand…now that’s a match made in the stars.”

Her face fell back into a disgusted expression that caused him to chuckle before getting back on topic. “So your taste in boyfriends got worse. Just find a better guy.”

“That’s the thing!” she cried. “What if the next guy ends up being worse than Truman?! You’ve seen my track record—it _sucks_! I feel like if it doesn’t involve textbooks, I _suck_ at it—wait, _no_! That was an observation! I wasn’t really being negative about myself!”

“Bottoms up, McDonald.”

She groaned and took the shot, gagging once again. Her head spun dangerously, and she teetered on the seat, grabbing onto the table and Derek’s arm at the last minute.

Why did she agree to this again? Good God.

“Feet on the floor, McDrunkerson,” he chuckled, patting her knee until she set her feet flat on the tiled floor.

“You have great hair,” she rasped, holding out her hand for another shot of ice cream. He laughed and obliged.

As soon as the cup was empty, she tried to rephrase, “Okay, say I _do_ find a nice guy. How will I know if he’s not actually some serial killer or rapist or something?”

Derek paled and took a sip straight out of the bottle. “God knows you have the bad luck to get caught in something like that.”

“ _See_?” she asked beseechingly. “I try my best to find the right guys—the _good_ guys—but it doesn’t happen. _My_ definition of good isn’t good enough.”

Then it occurred to her:

“Everything _I_ touch gets screwed up, Der, what if _I’m_ the bad factor? My own best intentions make a mess of things, so—”

“Casey, I’m gonna make you chug this entire bottle,” he threatened, narrowing his eyes at me. “Why do you do this so much? Why do you take credit for other people’s mistakes? You pull the weights off other people’s shoulders just to drag them around yourself.” He poured another shot of bourbon and pushed it toward her. “And not _everything_ you touch crashes and burns. You’re not fooling anyone by saying that.”

She took the shot without protest, wincing at the dull burn and belatedly realizing that she was really beginning to get drunk. “Well, it _seems_ to be the reality, D. Can you blame me for thinking it?”

He wiped his hand down his face in frustration. This was taking a toll on him. Derek didn’t do this type of thing—he didn’t deal with emotions. At this point, he looked like he was seriously regretting dragging her into this. He must’ve been looking forward to seeing her inebriated, but even if she’d had enough shots to get her to that point, she was obviously just getting _worse._ She was a _sad drunk._

She blanched at the realization: she even sucked at _being_ _drunk_! She couldn’t be fun or loose—she’d just be a thousand times sadder than normal!

Casey sighed. “Maybe I should just join a convent. Lord knows I can do a lot more good out there since I wouldn’t be so distracted by guys. Not to mention the fact that I could get away from _you_. And I would never have to worry about being fashionable or stylish since all I’d ever need to wear is a habit. It could actually be a very rewarding lifestyle. I could be the next Mother Teresa.”

“No. Oh, _hell_ no.”

“You’re right. I might end up falling in love with a priest or something.” She nodded, holding her hand out for another ice cream shot. “Yeah, that sounds like something that would happen to me. Join a convent to get away from guys and wind up falling in love with one of the guys I cannot _ever_ have.”

“Come on, princess,” he said, refilling the ice cream shot. “Your life doesn’t suck that bad. Don’t be so melodramatic.”

“That’s the sad part!” she cried through a mouthful of rocky road. “I’m not even being dramatic!”

He rolled his eyes and sighed. “Yeah, because _your_ version of ‘dramatic’ involves a stage, whereas the rest of us see this little breakdown as a full-scale melodramatic _episode_.”

“Der-ek! I’m not really being dramatic! Don’t belittle my problems!”

“Case, I’m not belittling your problems! You’re just being dramatic! You’re all: _I suck at life_! You don’t suck at _life_ , you suck at _love_!”

“Love _is_ life!” she insisted.

“For the love of God! You really _are_ a Space-Case! Your head is just _stuck_ up in the clouds!”

She groaned and slammed her head down onto the table, the alcohol dulling her senses enough so that the pain hardly registered. She was going to have such a pretty bruise on her forehead.

“Casey! Jeez!”

“How many times will it take, D?” she asked, her voice muffled by the mint green placemat. “How many times will it take for me to get it right?”

She needed her mom.

“Case.”

She needed Lizzie.

“Casey.”

She needed Emily.

“Spacey.”

Oh, no wait. Not Emily. Emily was _persona non grata_.

“ _Princess_! Would you just look at me? You can’t bask in my glory when your head’s on the table like that.”

She _had_ been planning on lifting her head, but she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction anymore. She didn’t want to “bask” in any of his “glory.”

“I like where I am now, thanks.”

“Look, I’m about to become Sensitive Derek again—remember him? The one who crawled outta the woodworks because of Dad’s bet? Don’t you wanna hear what Sensitive Derek has to say?”

“I didn’t want to come out here in the first place, _In_ sensitive Derek.”

“You’re gonna wanna hear this,” he urged persistently.

“You’re just gonna insult me afterward,” she moaned. “You’ll make me feel good about myself and then yank me back down to reality.”

“I promise I won’t insult you,” he said earnestly.

She scoffed and laughed scornfully. “I’m _sure_ you won’t.”

“Case, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity here. I suggest you take it before it walks out the door.”

“I’ll survive without it.”

When she felt hands on either side of her head lift her up, her eyes went wide and the rest of her body went rigid. Derek was leaning over the back of his chair with his face about seven centimeters from hers. The memories of why her favorite flavor switched from vanilla to chocolate rushed back in a heady haze of salty sea air and cool, minty breath.

“What I’m about to say, you will _never, ever_ repeatto _anyone_. You got me?”

She blinked, and he took it as her assent.

“The only thing wrong with you is your taste in guys,” he stated firmly. “Well, that and your incessant need to be organized and perfect, but that’s beside the point. You’re at university now—”

“Regardless of where we are, Derek, we can’t _reboot_ my luck. I can’t start again with a clean slate. If I could rewind and undo—”

“Max and Truman and even Scott the Douche were mistakes you made and learned from in _high school_ so _leave them there_. Even if you screw up and end up dating some serial killer, you have friends to watch out for you—if you ever get out of this damn apartment and go make some. And if you _do_ end up murdered, at least you’ll be spared from any future douchebag boyfriends, eh? Plus you got the fam back at home. Who knows? You might find your freakin’ soul mate here by _sheer dumb luck_. So go ahead and make your wishes and send your prayers for your freakin’ Prince Charming because if the cosmos is as balanced as people try to make it out to be, you’ll find him someday. You’ll _eventually_ get it right.”

Then her mouth just _dropped_.

He released her head, looked at his watch, and stood up. “I got a date with Andrea from Bio.” He waggled his eyebrows and motioned to the mess on the table. “You gonna clean this shit up, right? Of course you are.”

And the moment was lost once again. “DER-EK!”

He grinned and grabbed his keys from the counter. “I promised I wasn’t gonna insult you, and I haven’t.”

“But you yanked me back down to reality—just like I said you would! I called it!”

“Well, I _had_ to,” he said plainly, taking one last scoop of ice cream and ruffling my hair. “There’s a reason why I call you _Spacey_ , remember? You _need_ me to keep you from floating out into the universe.”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head ruefully, watching him grab his jacket out of the coat closet. “Hey, D?”

“What now?” he groaned, leaning his head back to look at her.

She blinked up at him. “Thank you.”

He gave her a small, devious smile. “For _what_? I just came out here to find you sitting there, indulging in bourbon and ice cream. Imagine my shock to see Casey ‘The Keener’ McDonald in such a compromising position. Did you forget that you’re underage or something, Case?”

She sighed and dropped her head onto the table again as he laughed.

Sensitive or insensitive, he still always managed to turn out simply _Derek_.

She was about to close her eyes and let herself sleep away her stupidity and the bourbon when he called her to one last time. She sat up to see his head poking through the door, one hand on the knob.

“By the way,” he said, smirking, “things didn’t go downhill after Sam, princess. They went downhill after _me_.” Then he winked and slammed the door shut.


	4. "The One" - Backstreet Boys

Get it right? _Get it right_? Get _what_ right? Her priorities? Her _brain_? What…?

That girl was going to be the death of him—that is, if he didn’t kill her first himself.

Of course he’d gone and blown her little crisis out of the water with his parting statement by bringing up something that had been successfully stashed away for over four years, and when he’d gotten back from his date with Angela—was it Angela? Abigail? Anna? Andrea?—she was just studying at the dinner table as if nothing had happened. Of course, she was only fooling herself because the entire apartment was just _pristine_ , and the _whole of Canada_ knew that when Cassandra Diana McDonald freaked out, she either cleaned the _shit_ out of things or wound up a heaping mess of tears and snot on her bed. And of course, the whole of Canada also knew that Derek Aaron Venturi did not do tears, so he was pretty thankful she went with the cleaning option. And sure enough, the counters were _sparkling_ , he could see his _reflection_ on the metallic surface of the fridge, and the vacuum lines on the carpet were in perfect, even rows.

 _Predictable_.

However what _wasn’t_ predictable was the fact that she was just full-on _ignoring_ him. Oh, sure, yeah, she still cooked dinner and washed his laundry (and dumped it on the bed as soon as they were dry), but she never said a word to him aside from “excuse me” when he was in her way and “bless you” whenever he sneezed.

It pissed him off.

He thought she’d just blow it off and not even acknowledge the offhand comment because that’s what Casey normally did when something happened that she didn’t like, couldn’t change, and couldn’t do anything about. She ignored it and hoped it would pass with enough meditation and denial. But _no_! She took it an entirely new step further and gave him the silent treatment.

And it wasn’t as if what he’d said was _offensive_ in any way! It was just an observation of the pattern of her boyfriends, for God’s sake! It’s not like she had any _legitimate_ reason to get mad at him.

So three days later, when he turned all the clocks in the apartment fifteen minutes later, she didn’t even yell at him when she came home that night after being late to her first class—one of her biggest pet peeves. She didn’t even yell at him. Nothing. Even when he purposefully smacked into her in the kitchen—just to cause some sort of explosive reaction—she _apologized_ and went back to doing the dishes. She _apologized_ as if it had been her fault.

He wanted to grab her and scream, “CASEY! WHAT IN THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM?!” But he knew that would just make things worse. She’d stop making him food… So he just left for practice in a quiet fury.

Which is probably why he accidentally slapped the puck so hard that it rebounded off the middle of Reiser Vera’s helmet and pegged Quill Mortensen right on the cheek so hard that he slipped on the ice and fell on his back.

“WHAT IN THE HELL DID THE PUCK DO TO YOU, VENTURI?!” Overton roared from where the heavyset American coach had been leaning against one of the boards.

Derek just grumbled to himself as he helped Quill up from the ice and glared at Travis Orsino, who was flat on the ice, laughing his ass off.

Quill patted him on the back and gingerly touched the rapidly-forming bruise on his left cheek with a shrug. “It’s fine, dude.”

And for the rest of practice, it _had_ been fine. He hadn’t decapitated anyone or injured anyone in any way again. He hadn’t gotten yelled at. He hadn’t gotten distracted again. And no one said anything about it.

Of course, he should’ve known they were just saving it up for the locker room.

“Hey, Quill,” Derek called from one side of the aisle, “sorry again, man.”

“It’s _cool_ , D,” Quill said with a good-natured grin. “Just make sure you sort it out with Casey, eh?”

Derek actually _felt_ the blood rush up his face—as if filling up a water bottle straight from the tap.

“What?” he managed to ask nonchalantly, but none of the guys were having it.

“Oh, come on, Derek,” Caleb Winters, the team captain said, as he emerged from the showers in a towel. “The only reason you ever get pissed is ‘cause of her. Two weeks ago, you were slamming your shit around and throwing your crap all over the place ‘cause Casey didn’t come to that extended practice to bring you dinner like she’d promised.”

“And then a day after that, you nearly broke your locker ‘cause you were pissed at yourself for yelling at her and making her cry before finding out she’d twisted her ankle and her phone was dead because you accidentally brought her charger,” Michael Somers pitched in.

Derek winced and twisted the jersey in his hands a little tighter because that shit was still fresh. He felt _horrible_ for that.

“A week after _that_ , you were pissed ‘cause she went on a date with some guy from your old high school who was coming up to visit,” Jensen Campbell added as he passed Derek’s bench on the way to his locker.

“And you were even _more_ pissed the next day ‘cause I’m guessing you found out he was cheating on her _again_ ,” Jared Singer finished from right behind Derek.

Derek frowned at his older teammate. “How in the hell did you know about that?”

“You threw a soap bar at the wall and growled about her taking back a cheating bastard,” Frank Baez volunteered flatly.

“See? Casey’s always the common denominator when it comes to you, D,” Caleb concluded. He elbowed the shirtless player standing next to him and asked, “Am I right or am I right, Sam?”

Derek locked eyes with his best friend— _his_ _best buddy since they’d been in diapers_ —and tried to telepathically communicate that if he said “yes,” their eighteen-year relationship would be in some serious jeopardy.

“He gets mad ‘cause of other people too,” Sam answered loyally, nervously wringing his t-shirt.

See? That’s why they were—

“Like the other guys she dates and the girls that are mean to her.”

—no longer friends.

“Derek! Don’t you dare hit me with that!” Sam cried, ducking away from where Derek had jumped to his feet and hefted his hockey stick.

He had to fix this. Laughing _with_ him was good; laughing _at_ him was unspeakable. It’d been this way for years, and it must remain so.

“Oh, really?!” he shot back suddenly, still brandishing his hockey stick. “What if I’m just pissed at Reiser?”

“WHAT?!” the goalie barked defensively from the other side of the locker room. “What did I do?!”

Derek sighed in defeat, leaned his stick against his locker, and sat back down as the guys just dissolved into laughter again. He’d really been hoping that college guys would just be stupider, more annoying versions of high school guys because high school guys were easy to manipulate. But _no_. Being on the hockey team meant having high marks and rigid disciplines so that meant they were _smarter_ and therefore _infinitely_ _more annoying_ versions of high school guys.

Jason Tomason patted him on the back consolingly. “Face it, Venturi,” he said, shrugging sympathetically. “You got it, and you got it _bad_.”

“I don’t _got_ anything,” Derek growled through his teeth as the others continued to chuckle.

“What’s your problem, dude?” BJ Wake finally demanded in disbelief. “She’s gorgeous, brilliant, and free as a bird—what more do you need?!”

“Beej, I think you forgot one little thing,” Ryne Lorne chortled darkly, poking his head out from around the other aisle to smirk at Derek. “ _They’re related.”_

Many of the guys _ooh’_ ed as Derek scowled.

“Come on, that’s just bull,” Ian Rosen called out from another area of the locker room. “The only thing that really matters if whether there’s no _blood_ relation, Lorne.”

“Yeah,” BJ agreed. “There’s no law against it since they don’t share any blood and they haven’t been adopted by each other’s parents—right, D?”

“You can’t adopt a stepchild if both their parents are alive, and Derek’s mom and Casey’s dad are still alive,” Ian pointed out.

Derek seriously started to worry about how much these guys knew about him…

“But there’s still a _stigma_ , guys,” Gabe Nguyen said meaningfully. “It happens all the time, nowadays, but the social repercussions are pretty harsh. And it doesn’t help that they’ve both got younger sibs and a half-brother on the way—right, D?”

This was creeping him out. He did _not_ remember telling them any of this. Did they do a background check on him and pass it around the team like a memo or something? Gotta look up the fresh meat?

“Not that I got anything against stepsib relationships,” Gabe continued, sounding every bit the wise, level-headed Asian that he’d cemented his status as, “but when you factor in the new baby who’s practically half-Derek, half-Casey already… It’s gonna get weird for his fam.”

“And it’s easy for _us_ to say that there’s no blood relation and everything,” Asiel Velez added. “We’re not in the situation. _You_ nitwits try being stuck with a sexy-ass stepsister. You wouldn’t be jumping at the chance either. It’s complicated.”

“But the point is that you’re _here_ , Derek,” Caleb said, whacking Derek with his wet towel after pulling his pants on. “Your family, on the other hand, is in _London_. If you want Casey, you should go for it while you still can. Test the waters, you know?”

“That way if things go south, no one in your fam will be the wiser, and you two can come to some mutual agreement that shit will not be spoken about so your relationship won’t get all weird,” Jason added.

Derek scowled momentarily, glaring at the inside of his locker from where he sat on the wooden bench. He and Casey were more than familiar with mutual agreements about shit that would not be spoken about in order to keep relationships from going weird. They’d been doing that type of thing since the very beginning.

“Yeah, and it’s not like we’d call you out on it here,” Jared said good-naturedly. “We’re practically the only ones who know y’all are steps anyway.”

“Not that you should care what the hell we think to begin with,” Jensen pointed out blandly. “We’re all apparently gossiping old ladies. Where’s the yarn, Somers? I gotta go knit something.”

“Hey, Sam, didn’t you date Casey before?” Ryne suddenly hollered.

The entire locker room fell silent. Derek’s eye twitched, and he refused to look up from where he’d fixed his eyes on the paint peeling from the metal of his locker door.

Sam flushed a brilliant red and ruffled his sandy-blonde hair nervously, glancing back and forth between the senior players around him. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, we did.”

“And you and D are best friends, right?” Ryne continued. “How do _you_ feel ‘bout all this?”

“I-I-I think it makes sense,” Sam answered.

Though his voice wavered, his tone was certain, and Derek lifted his head to stare straight at his best friend. He _had_ to be kidding or saying this for appearances…

Sam met his gaze and smiled a little bit. “I mean, it’s like I watched you guys over the years, and I thought it was just typical s-sibling rivalry and stuff…but now that you guys keep ragging on him and making all these arguments. Like, I-I _see_ it. Just had to put on a different pair of glasses, you know? Now it makes sense.”

“So you’re all for it?” Ryne persisted, garnering a punch to the shoulder from Caleb. “What? I’m just asking.” He turned back to Sam and cocked an eyebrow. “Well? No hard feelings and shit? No, uh, _bro code_?”

Derek blanched, remembering how he had pulled the male code card all those years ago.

Sam looked back at Derek and shrugged again. “I mean, it’s gonna be a little weird, but all things considered, it’s really not gonna be that bad. I’m not gonna stop it. Casey and I ended things years ago; I got no hard feelings.”

Derek was going to have to find him the most kickass birthday present.

“But you guys, you missed one crucial little point,” Noah Waterman called out over the locker room din.

Jensen snorted. “Really? The way y’all been talking about it makes me think you covered all the bases.”

Noah scowled at his fellow junior before turning to address Derek. “Do you actually _want_ her?”

Well, that was new. No one had actually flat-out _asked_ him and waited for a yes or no answer. They all just sort of read between the lines and made their assumptions. _Correct_ assumptions, of course, but assumptions nonetheless.

But he wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction. So in typical Derek fashion, he deflected the question and said, “Frankly, the only thing that actually _matters_ is whether or not _she’d_ want _me_ back even if _I_ wanted _her_.”

Jared shrugged. “Well, he’s got a point there.”

“And she’s having some sort of crisis anyway,” Derek added, standing up and shoving his clothes into his bag. “Thinks she’s got shitty taste in guys—”

“Ouch,” Sam muttered, grimacing.

“Except you, buddy,” Derek amended and then continued, “And now she had this _meltdown_ about it, saying she probably needs to join a convent before she accidentally gets involved with a serial killer or a rapist.”

“Dude, that’d be such a waste,” Reiser said, wincing. “Not the creeper serial killer thing—I mean the convent shit.”

Derek chuckled bitterly. “That’s what I said.”

“Then why in the hell haven’t you nailed that ass yet?!” Ryne demanded, throwing his hands up in frustration.

He received a sharp smack to the back of the head, courtesy of Caleb since Derek was too far away to punch his teammate.

 _“Don’t_ , _”_ Derek growled through his teeth.

Ryne held a hand to the back of his head and the other up in surrender. “Just make sure you claim that girl before some other guy decides to make a move, Venturi.”

Derek glared at him. “That a threat, Lorne?”

Ryne shrugged carelessly, slamming his locker shut and hefting his bag over his shoulder. “It’s a word of warning, dumbass. She ain’t gonna wait for you forever.”

“That depends on whether or not she even wants him at all,” Jensen deadpanned.

“Come on, guys,” Quill said, finally speaking up again. “We’re talking about him like he’s not even here.”

“Yeah, and it’s like y’all are talkin’ about him like you’re a bunch of GIRLS!” Overton barked from the doorway of his adjacent office. “Can y’all just wrap up this little sleepover and get the hell out? I can’t concentrate with y’all’s babblin’!”

Some of the guys chortled and someone turned on the radio. Derek was about to turn back to his locker when he felt a meaty, calloused hand wrap around the back of his neck, and he flinched, knowing exactly who it was. This American coach was loud and abrasive, but dear God almighty, the man was a ninja. How he managed move ten feet without Derek even noticing was just _scary_.

“You done with your little Casey episode, Venturi?” Overton growled almost inaudibly, bowing his head close to Derek’s. “I’d hate to hear that you made her cry again.”

Derek looked up to meet the narrow-eyed gaze of his coach and gently shrugged away from the older man’s grip. “It’s _fine_ , Coach. I didn’t actually do anything to her this time. She’s just…dealing with stuff.”

Overton’s eyes got even narrower, but he jerked his head as if flicking off the situation and then sighed. “Just…watch yourself, Venturi. In my career, I’ve seen this kind of thing a million times. You can’t compartmentalize your issues, kid. Take a holistic point of view to your game—if somethin’s wrong, it’s gonna reflect on your performance.”

“I know, Coach,” Derek said as respectfully and dismissingly as he could.

Overton smacked him on the back before turning and walking back to his office, where he slammed the door shut so hard that the lockers rattled.

Derek heaved a deep breath and stood back up to finish packing when all of a sudden, he heard, _“I’ll be the ooone…”_

“D! D, it’s your song!” Travis crowed with a huge grin on his face as he skidded to view at the other end of the bench Derek was standing by, waving around his t-shirt and doing the running man to the song.

 _“My song?!”_ Derek demanded as they all stared at the dancing sophomore in disbelief.

Travis suddenly turned to point at Derek as he belted out, _“I guess she was lost when she met you—”_

Raphael Cordova covered his face in disgust as the guys started to either laugh or shake their heads in disbelief. “Dude, you are _not_ modifying the lyrics to fit Derek and Casey.”

“I don’t know who should be more embarrassed—Travis for knowing the song and actually looking like he _likes_ it,” Ian muttered disappointedly, leaning against his locker. Then he turned to Raphael, “or _you_ for knowing the lyrics enough to realize he’s changing it.”

“Four older sisters who’re in love with Brian Littrell, man! Every Orsino can belt this song out like it’s nobody’s business!” Travis barked before jumping right back into the song, _“—no more them mysteries and lieees. There she was! Wild and free! Reaching out like she needed D!”_

“My God, kid, you took too many slapshots to the head in high school, didn’t you?” Caleb sighed despondently.

_“A helping haaaand to make it riiight; you’ll be holding her all through the niiiight!”_

“ORSINO, GET A GRIP!” Derek cried in frustration.

“Oh, come on, D!” BJ laughed, bobbing his head to the music. “If you listen to the lyrics, it totally fits! It’s your song, man!”

“No, it’s _really_ not,” Derek insisted.

 _“You’ll be the one—you’ll be the oooone—who will make all her sorrows undooone,”_ Travis sang as he danced around in circles and mimed the lyrics, even going so far as to leap up onto the bench and strut up and down. _“You’ll be the light—you’ll be the liiiight—when she feels like there’s nowhere to ruuuun. You’ll be the one to hold her and make sure that she’ll be all right. ‘Cause your fear is gooone, and you waaant toooo take her from darkness to the liiiiight!”_

The remaining guys in the locker room either finally gave into their laughter or joined in on the singing and dancing. The fact that it wasn’t just Travis and Raphael who knew the lyrics was seriously disturbing. Only Sam and Ian were standing there, standing around unaffectedly and watching the show with small smirks and the occasional chuckle.

Derek wanted to shove their skates down their throats…right after he ripped off the heads of the rest of his teammates.

He honestly couldn’t understand why he was so pissed. He’d been the one to plan on changing his relationship with Casey so that they could be something _more_ , but here he was feeling embarrassed as hell. Well, it was kinda understandable. His freaking _teammates_ were making fun of him, but _still_.

He was _Derek Venturi_. He was supposed to twist this whole thing to his benefit and to someone else’s chagrin. But all he could think of was how irritatingly appropriate this song really was. Whomever wrote those damn lyrics should be burned at stake.

“Come on, D! Get that stick outta your ass!” Reiser laughed. “Hakuna matata, man!”

Suddenly, Travis stopped on the bench in front of Derek and bent down to full-on _serenade_ him. Derek had to slap his hands away as the older boy reached out to stroke his face. _“You need her like she needs youuuu—y’all can share your dreams comin’ truuue. You can show Case what truuue looove means; just take her hand, Derek, pleeeeeeeeeease.”_

Derek beseeching turned to look at Overton’s window, hoping the irritable coach would come to his rescue and admonish his lunatic hockey players, but the blinds were shut and the door adamantly remained shut. He would be of no help.

_“You’ll be the one, you’ll be the light where she can run to make it all right. You’ll be the one, you’ll be the light where she can run—you’ll be the one—”_

“SHUT IT OFF!” Jensen suddenly roared, scaring them all halfway to hell.

All eyes shifted to stare at where hazel-eyed junior was standing at the entrance—right beside a pretty brunette with electric blue eyes.

“Case?” Derek spoke, immediately registering the expression on her face.

He dropped what he was holding, pushed Travis out of the way, and shouldered his way between the guys to come up to his stepsister. She swallowed and blinked up at him. He reached out and gripped her shoulders.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” he asked worriedly. When she didn’t respond, he persisted. “Casey, come on. You gotta tell me what’s wrong, princess. What’s wrong?”

She finally snapped out of her little stupor, her eyes finally latching onto his. “We have to go home—to _London_.”

“What? Why?” he croaked. “What’s happened? Is it Nora? Is she going into prematu—”

She shook her head, closing her eyes as if to steady herself. “No, no, it’s… Derek, it’s Marti.”


	5. "Cry" - Mandy Moore

Casey glanced at her stepbrother out of the corner of her eye, only taking her eyes off the road for a second. He wasn’t doing well at all. She had to take the wheel of his precious Prince this time because he couldn’t even hold up a half-filled cup of water without spilling everything; he was shaking so much. He couldn’t sit still for a second, anxiously fussing in the passenger seat as if he was claustrophobic. He wouldn’t speak, he wouldn’t eat; he was running his fingers through his hair so much that large clumps would start falling out soon.

But Casey didn’t say a word; she didn’t offer him any comfort or reassurances. She wasn’t sure if it was because she didn’t know what to say to him or if it was because she knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t want to hear it. Either way, she kept silent and drove as fast as she could without getting pulled over. She wasn’t faring much better either, but she managed to get them to London in one piece.

Marti, the precocious little nine year-old, had fallen down a flight of stairs, breaking a rib and cracking her skull, but she still somehow had more than enough Venturi tenacity to not even fall into a coma. She was only unconscious for a couple of hours, but it was still more than enough time to send all _three_ sides of the family into a tizzy. Abby was crawling up the wall, but George had convinced her and her parents to stay in their respective countries since it wasn’t necessary to come. George’s own mother was almost inconsolable until he called back and told her that her youngest grandchild was fine. Nora kept bursting into tears every time she’d even glance in Marti’s direction, and Lizzie was like _steel_ until Edwin finally grabbed and hugged her to him. It was the trigger that blew the dam and let loose the torrent of tears. Edwin himself didn’t say a word unless it was to reassure Marti that her Smerek and Smasey were almost there.

When they _did_ arrive, Derek had leaped out of the car before Casey even managed to park it, and normally, he would’ve been quite impressed with his action hero skills and Casey would’ve strangled him for risking getting run over. Neither of them said a word, though. He brushed  past his family and made a beeline for his little sister, but instead of crumbling into tears like Casey had anticipated, Derek turned to absolute stone. He was a statue—a _gargoyle_ , perhaps—standing guard over his napping little sister.

Marti had made Edwin promise to wake her once Derek arrived, but Derek didn’t give the middle Venturi a chance.

It was… _weird_ seeing him like this, to say the least. She’d seen him play with her, act like a _normal_ human being because of her. She was the only one he’d cow to. He’d only do it to his mom and dad if he was really guilt-tripped and brow-beaten into it; but all it took was an adamant word from Marti, and he’d break.

It was horrifying enough to see Marti in this state—this bouncy, temperamental Energizer bunny trapped in a nine year-old little girl’s body who was all broken and bandaged in a hospital bed. Seeing Derek like _this_ was the chocolate fudge to this nightmare of a sundae.

Casey continued to watch Derek just _stand_ _there_ motionlessly until she felt a gentle tug at her elbow. She turned, eyes swimming with tears, to see George shepherding the rest of the family out of the room and trying to pull her out as well. He nodded once, and she let him tow her out and quietly shut the door behind them.

She glanced back through the glass wall, through the Venetian blinds of the private room. “Will he be okay?” she asked his father. “Will… _they_ be okay?”

Nora had pulled Edwin and Lizzie to her on the waiting room couch, hugging them to her sides. George merely stood next to Casey, watching his oldest and youngest through the glass.

“Derek was nine years-old when Abby was pregnant with Marti,” George began quietly. “At this point, he was kind of annoyed with having Edwin as his little brother, so when we told him he was going to have a sister, we expected a typical Derek reaction where he’d get exasperated and complain about how there were already enough psychos in the house or something. So when he just sat there, completely stoic, we got a little scared. But then after a few seconds, he frowned, gave up this weird grimace, and then asked exactly how crazy girls could get and if they were anything like Edwin.”

Casey tore her eyes away from the pair to look up at the expression on her stepfather’s face. He was still staring at Derek and Marti, but he was smiling fondly at the distant memory.

“See, Edwin was kind of a little monster at that age. He could fall down stairs, get caught between the jamb and a closing door, and get whacked in the face with a hockey stick—all he would do was laugh. So Derek had his hands full already, trying to keep his borderline-suicidal little brother out of harm’s way, and when we explained how girls didn’t have the durability of a combat boot like Edwin, we expected D to have a mini-breakdown,” he explained. “But once again, all he did was sit there with this frown. In retrospect, I knew exactly what that expression meant—the kid was strategizing. He was probably already plotting out some way to encase Marti in some titanium bubble to keep her from getting hurt. And from that day on, he was always _so_ protective of Abby. He refused to let her anywhere near a working oven, so she had to direct him from the other side of the island when she wanted to make dinner or he’d simply make _me_ do it. He yelled at her if she went up and down the stairs too quickly, and he would always make sure there was nothing on the steps themselves for her to trip on. He had me buy those rubber circles for the bathtubs to keep her from slipping and falling. He wouldn’t let her stay up too late, and made sure she ate three square meals a day on top of whatever other bizarre snack she wanted—even if he was in school. He basically insisted on doing _my_ job.”

Casey felt the corners of her mouth curl upward. _Who knew?_

“So when there were complications with Marti’s birth,” George sighed, his tone suddenly turning somber, “I was the one was consoling Derek instead of the other way around. Abby had to have a Caesarean, and we ended up leaving Edwin with my mom in the waiting room because Derek was right there with us in the operating room. I still cut the cord, but he was the very first to hold Marti. They’ve been close ever since—I’m sure you’ve seen.”

Casey nodded in solemn agreement and then gasped when she saw Marti’s eyes flutter open. The little invalid grinned up at her brother, and the stone statue finally cracked. Derek bent, scooted his little sister over, and then laid down beside her, holding her close against his side as they spoke quietly.

“How was he in the car?” George asked.

“Restless,” Casey replied.

George smiled a little ruefully. The expression shouldn’t have accentuated the lines on his face, but it did. “You’re lucky.”

Casey frowned and turned to look at him again. “What do you mean?”

“He was holding back,” George answered. “Marti burned herself by touching a cookie sheet straight from the oven once, and Derek went ballistic.” He turned and rubbed his stepdaughter’s back. “You’re fortunate that he had enough presence of mind to hand the keys over to you.”

“What makes you think I didn’t have to take them myself?” she joked, trying to lighten the mood.

George tilted his head toward her and gave a pointed look accentuated with the smirk that Derek inherited. She cracked a smile in reply, but as soon as she turned back to Derek and Marti, the fragile expression on her face cracked and fell again.

“They’ll…they’ll be okay, right, George?” she asked again, since he never actually answered her question before.

He dropped his hand from where it had come to rest on her shoulder so that he could scrub his face with both hands. “She’s gotten hurt before, but never to this degree. I mean, he’s still Derek, but I don’t know how long it’ll take for him to bounce back after something this.”

“He looked really, _really_ shaken up, George,” Casey muttered. “I’ve never seen him like that before.”

“He’ll be fine,” George responded reassuringly—for her benefit or his own, she wasn’t sure. “He’ll be fine.”

**~oOo~**

The nurses understood the family’s stress, but the fact of the matter was that it was still the end of visiting hours—it was time for them to _go_. But Derek didn’t even give them an excuse or any sort of legitimate counterargument. He simply and steadfastly refused to move from the chair—not that Marti was of any help either once anybody saw the white-knuckled grip on her brother.

So the nurses gave in under the fiery glares of the two Venturis. Surprisingly, the only one who didn’t cave was Nora. She’d taken to George’s three children very quickly and very intuitively, so she knew without a doubt that someone _else_ needed to stay with the invalid and the emotionally unstable statue.

No one looked to Edwin—the middle of the three siblings. No one looked to Lizzie—the level-headed, no-nonsense youngest McDonald. No one looked to George—you know, _their father_. No one looked to Nora—the most _mothering_ out of everybody else there.

No, they all looked at Casey.

Because no matter how old they got or where they were in the world, where Derek goes, Casey must follow. Because the cosmos either hated them or got a kick out of making them so miserably compatible. Like nitric acid and glycerol.

So when she found him sitting on the bench outside instead of sitting guard over a sleeping Marti, she wasn’t entirely sure if she should approach him or let him be.

But she was Casey McDonald.

And it wasn’t that she knew she didn’t know how to leave well enough alone. She knew when to leave certain people alone at certain times because regardless of women’s intuition and simple common courtesy, there were times when being alone wasn’t appropriate. And as she watched him—staring blankly into the dark parking lot in front of him, his shoulders slumped, hands resting limply on his thighs, and his legs stretched out haphazardly in front of him—there was a small part of her that knew he shouldn’t be alone.

So she took a deep, steadying breath and braced herself to be rejected _yet again._ Then he slowly walked forward and cautiously sat down beside him, her elbow barely brushing his as she tucked her cold hands into her sweater pockets. She expected him to jump and sneer at her or something— _anything_ —but he didn’t even react. He just kept sitting there as if he was some indifferent ghost—everything passing through him, no one noticing him, and nothing affect him at all.

She felt an immature urge to poke him just to elicit any sort of reaction, but she shrugged it off and chanced a look at him instead.

It was only at that angle and at that close proximity did she see the faint gleam of wetness on his cheeks, reflecting the light of hospital streetlamp above them.

He’d been crying.

And that…rattled something in her. Rattled in the same way that…

Marti was, for all intents and purposes, the heart of the family—the broken, patchwork family that managed to chug along and _survive_ in spite of all their issues. She was the baby, and in spite of Derek and Casey’s teenage self-centeredness, she’d been the center of the McDonald-Venturi household for the last four years. If she was upset, everyone else would spiral into that same state. Regardless of how explosive the two eldest stepsiblings’ relationship could get, it couldn’t compare to one of Marti’s episodes. Everyone else could essentially scatter or sink into the background to avoid getting caught in the crossfire between Derek and Casey. With Marti, however, it was less of a gunfight and more like a nuclear explosion.

Yet on the other side of the spectrum, this girl could sit back and observe or be entirely and absolutely absorbed in something else, and she would _still_ be more perceptive than the entire family put together. Childlike innocence aside, Marti _knew_ things.

A soft and steady presence, a heart _knew_ things—may it be wise and perceptive, weird and unexplainable. And when it was in jeopardy, so was everything else.

But there had been something else—something Casey hadn’t ever really considered before. It was an interdependency that was so subtle and yet so obvious.

Derek.

 _Derek_.

He was the rock—the _anchor_ —of the family. He was the one who weighed everyone back down when everyone—Casey especially—were in danger of floating away. Edwin would formulate his grand schemes and no one but Derek could cut him back down to size. Lizzie was too level-headed for flights of fancy, but even George and Nora had fallen victim to that once or twice. And of course, there was _Casey_.

He’d illustrated his role as an anchor time and time again, but it wasn’t until that exact moment that she really saw how much she needed… _him_. As much as she was loathe to admit it, it was the truth. He did call her “Space-Case” after all. And who else would put aside decorum and common courtesy to shoot her back down to earth before she really made a mess of things?

But just because he was a rock didn’t mean he was unbreakable.

There’s always that one man that would never cry. He could steel himself through pain, heartache, and _Titanic_ , so when he finally broke down, it broke down _everything_. It meant that something was just _so horrible_ , that the chink in his armor had _shattered_ , and if his walls crumbled, then there was no hope for anyone else’s.

For her, that man wasn’t her father or her stepfather. It was Derek—the skirt-chasing, inconsiderate, insensitive, prankster of a stepbrother. The chink in his armor had been found; the walls beginning to crack. Even though he still looked intact, she knew how close he really was to falling apart.

So she reached out and slid her fingers between his. When his fingers folded around hers, she pulled her other hand out of her pocket, covering his one hand with both of hers and giving him as much comfort and warmth as she could. The only thing in her mind was trying to help him hold himself together.

She didn’t try to talk out why he was crying or reassure that Marti was fine. She didn’t tell him everything would be okay or that he and the family would get through this. She never opened her mouth. Because sometimes when you’re deathly afraid of something, you’re beyond words of comfort. And she knew him enough that Derek had been _deathly_ afraid of losing his baby sister—she fell down _a flight of stairs_ for God’s sake! She could’ve snapped her neck or completely cracked her skull open!

He wasn’t crying anymore, but she knew that there were still things he needed to let out. In spite of how limp he looked, his entire frame was tense and stiff. There was something he was still bottling up, and Casey knew that the longer he kept it in, the bigger the explosion would be.

But she couldn’t push him. She couldn’t make him talk and make him let go.

So they just sat there.

Many different things ran through her mind the entire time—the smell of his hair, the feel of his calloused fingers between hers, the way the edge of the bench dug into the back of her thighs the longer they sat there for what seemed like forever but was, in actuality, just ten minutes.

She _wanted_ to sit there forever. She felt as if though this was the only way to truly help Derek in a more significant way than being his source of entertainment or letting him cheat her out of money or TV time. If this was all she could do for him, then she’d do it. Not because she owed him or because she felt bad for him. She just…wanted to do it. Something in her… _yearned_ to help him. It wasn’t her “bleeding heart” or compassion. It was just… _Derek._ Uncharacteristic, unanticipated, and unexplainable.

Neither of them said a word as she tugged on his hand and stood up, pulling him up with her. He made no move to extricate his hand from hers even as they walked into the hospital and back into Marti’s room. He just…gave her this look. This…unreadable look that clearly was trying to convey some sort of message that she just wasn’t receiving.

“Your hand still feels the same,” he muttered.

Uncharacteristic, unanticipated, and unbelievable.

Casey chuckled nervously, thrown by his comment. “What? Sticky and packed with cooties?” she quipped, trying to bring back some semblance of normalcy after everything that had happened already.

“No,” he answered quietly, brushing his thumb back and forth against the skin of her knuckles while his eyes remained trained on their clasped hands.

And then he squeezed one last time before letting go and walking into the room, resuming his post next to Marti’s bed.


	6. "Cry" - Mandy Moore

Casey glanced at her stepbrother out of the corner of her eye, only taking her eyes off the road for a second. He wasn’t doing well at all. She had to take the wheel of his precious Prince this time because he couldn’t even hold up a half-filled cup of water without spilling everything; he was shaking so much. He couldn’t sit still for a second, anxiously fussing in the passenger seat as if he was claustrophobic. He wouldn’t speak, he wouldn’t eat; he was running his fingers through his hair so much that large clumps would start falling out soon.

But Casey didn’t say a word; she didn’t offer him any comfort or reassurances. She wasn’t sure if it was because she didn’t know what to say to him or if it was because she knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t want to hear it. Either way, she kept silent and drove as fast as she could without getting pulled over. She wasn’t faring much better either, but she managed to get them to London in one piece.

Marti, the precocious little nine year-old, had fallen down a flight of stairs, breaking a rib and cracking her skull, but she still somehow had more than enough Venturi tenacity to not even fall into a coma. She was only unconscious for a couple of hours, but it was still more than enough time to send all _three_ sides of the family into a tizzy. Abby was crawling up the wall, but George had convinced her and her parents to stay in their respective countries since it wasn’t necessary to come. George’s own mother was almost inconsolable until he called back and told her that her youngest grandchild was fine. Nora kept bursting into tears every time she’d even glance in Marti’s direction, and Lizzie was like _steel_ until Edwin finally grabbed and hugged her to him. It was the trigger that blew the dam and let loose the torrent of tears. Edwin himself didn’t say a word unless it was to reassure Marti that her Smerek and Smasey were almost there.

When they _did_ arrive, Derek had leaped out of the car before Casey even managed to park it, and normally, he would’ve been quite impressed with his action hero skills and Casey would’ve strangled him for risking getting run over. Neither of them said a word, though. He brushed  past his family and made a beeline for his little sister, but instead of crumbling into tears like Casey had anticipated, Derek turned to absolute stone. He was a statue—a _gargoyle_ , perhaps—standing guard over his napping little sister.

Marti had made Edwin promise to wake her once Derek arrived, but Derek didn’t give the middle Venturi a chance.

It was… _weird_ seeing him like this, to say the least. She’d seen him play with her, act like a _normal_ human being because of her. She was the only one he’d cow to. He’d only do it to his mom and dad if he was really guilt-tripped and brow-beaten into it; but all it took was an adamant word from Marti, and he’d break.

It was horrifying enough to see Marti in this state—this bouncy, temperamental Energizer bunny trapped in a nine year-old little girl’s body who was all broken and bandaged in a hospital bed. Seeing Derek like _this_ was the chocolate fudge to this nightmare of a sundae.

Casey continued to watch Derek just _stand_ _there_ motionlessly until she felt a gentle tug at her elbow. She turned, eyes swimming with tears, to see George shepherding the rest of the family out of the room and trying to pull her out as well. He nodded once, and she let him tow her out and quietly shut the door behind them.

She glanced back through the glass wall, through the Venetian blinds of the private room. “Will he be okay?” she asked his father. “Will… _they_ be okay?”

Nora had pulled Edwin and Lizzie to her on the waiting room couch, hugging them to her sides. George merely stood next to Casey, watching his oldest and youngest through the glass.

“Derek was nine years-old when Abby was pregnant with Marti,” George began quietly. “At this point, he was kind of annoyed with having Edwin as his little brother, so when we told him he was going to have a sister, we expected a typical Derek reaction where he’d get exasperated and complain about how there were already enough psychos in the house or something. So when he just sat there, completely stoic, we got a little scared. But then after a few seconds, he frowned, gave up this weird grimace, and then asked exactly how crazy girls could get and if they were anything like Edwin.”

Casey tore her eyes away from the pair to look up at the expression on her stepfather’s face. He was still staring at Derek and Marti, but he was smiling fondly at the distant memory.

“See, Edwin was kind of a little monster at that age. He could fall down stairs, get caught between the jamb and a closing door, and get whacked in the face with a hockey stick—all he would do was laugh. So Derek had his hands full already, trying to keep his borderline-suicidal little brother out of harm’s way, and when we explained how girls didn’t have the durability of a combat boot like Edwin, we expected D to have a mini-breakdown,” he explained. “But once again, all he did was sit there with this frown. In retrospect, I knew exactly what that expression meant—the kid was strategizing. He was probably already plotting out some way to encase Marti in some titanium bubble to keep her from getting hurt. And from that day on, he was always _so_ protective of Abby. He refused to let her anywhere near a working oven, so she had to direct him from the other side of the island when she wanted to make dinner or he’d simply make _me_ do it. He yelled at her if she went up and down the stairs too quickly, and he would always make sure there was nothing on the steps themselves for her to trip on. He had me buy those rubber circles for the bathtubs to keep her from slipping and falling. He wouldn’t let her stay up too late, and made sure she ate three square meals a day on top of whatever other bizarre snack she wanted—even if he was in school. He basically insisted on doing _my_ job.”

Casey felt the corners of her mouth curl upward. _Who knew?_

“So when there were complications with Marti’s birth,” George sighed, his tone suddenly turning somber, “I was the one was consoling Derek instead of the other way around. Abby had to have a Caesarean, and we ended up leaving Edwin with my mom in the waiting room because Derek was right there with us in the operating room. I still cut the cord, but he was the very first to hold Marti. They’ve been close ever since—I’m sure you’ve seen.”

Casey nodded in solemn agreement and then gasped when she saw Marti’s eyes flutter open. The little invalid grinned up at her brother, and the stone statue finally cracked. Derek bent, scooted his little sister over, and then laid down beside her, holding her close against his side as they spoke quietly.

“How was he in the car?” George asked.

“Restless,” Casey replied.

George smiled a little ruefully. The expression shouldn’t have accentuated the lines on his face, but it did. “You’re lucky.”

Casey frowned and turned to look at him again. “What do you mean?”

“He was holding back,” George answered. “Marti burned herself by touching a cookie sheet straight from the oven once, and Derek went ballistic.” He turned and rubbed his stepdaughter’s back. “You’re fortunate that he had enough presence of mind to hand the keys over to you.”

“What makes you think I didn’t have to take them myself?” she joked, trying to lighten the mood.

George tilted his head toward her and gave a pointed look accentuated with the smirk that Derek inherited. She cracked a smile in reply, but as soon as she turned back to Derek and Marti, the fragile expression on her face cracked and fell again.

“They’ll…they’ll be okay, right, George?” she asked again, since he never actually answered her question before.

He dropped his hand from where it had come to rest on her shoulder so that he could scrub his face with both hands. “She’s gotten hurt before, but never to this degree. I mean, he’s still Derek, but I don’t know how long it’ll take for him to bounce back after something this.”

“He looked really, _really_ shaken up, George,” Casey muttered. “I’ve never seen him like that before.”

“He’ll be fine,” George responded reassuringly—for her benefit or his own, she wasn’t sure. “He’ll be fine.”

**LINE**

The nurses understood the family’s stress, but the fact of the matter was that it was still the end of visiting hours—it was time for them to _go_. But Derek didn’t even give them an excuse or any sort of legitimate counterargument. He simply and steadfastly refused to move from the chair—not that Marti was of any help either once anybody saw the white-knuckled grip on her brother.

So the nurses gave in under the fiery glares of the two Venturis. Surprisingly, the only one who didn’t cave was Nora. She’d taken to George’s three children very quickly and very intuitively, so she knew without a doubt that someone _else_ needed to stay with the invalid and the emotionally unstable statue.

No one looked to Edwin—the middle of the three siblings. No one looked to Lizzie—the level-headed, no-nonsense youngest McDonald. No one looked to George—you know, _their father_. No one looked to Nora—the most _mothering_ out of everybody else there.

No, they all looked at Casey.

Because no matter how old they got or where they were in the world, where Derek goes, Casey must follow. Because the cosmos either hated them or got a kick out of making them so miserably compatible. Like nitric acid and glycerol.

So when she found him sitting on the bench outside instead of sitting guard over a sleeping Marti, she wasn’t entirely sure if she should approach him or let him be.

But she was Casey McDonald.

And it wasn’t that she knew she didn’t know how to leave well enough alone. She knew when to leave certain people alone at certain times because regardless of women’s intuition and simple common courtesy, there were times when being alone wasn’t appropriate. And as she watched him—staring blankly into the dark parking lot in front of him, his shoulders slumped, hands resting limply on his thighs, and his legs stretched out haphazardly in front of him—there was a small part of her that knew he shouldn’t be alone.

So she took a deep, steadying breath and braced herself to be rejected _yet again._ Then he slowly walked forward and cautiously sat down beside him, her elbow barely brushing his as she tucked her cold hands into her sweater pockets. She expected him to jump and sneer at her or something— _anything_ —but he didn’t even react. He just kept sitting there as if he was some indifferent ghost—everything passing through him, no one noticing him, and nothing affect him at all.

She felt an immature urge to poke him just to elicit any sort of reaction, but she shrugged it off and chanced a look at him instead.

It was only at that angle and at that close proximity did she see the faint gleam of wetness on his cheeks, reflecting the light of hospital streetlamp above them.

He’d been crying.

And that…rattled something in her. Rattled in the same way that…

Marti was, for all intents and purposes, the heart of the family—the broken, patchwork family that managed to chug along and _survive_ in spite of all their issues. She was the baby, and in spite of Derek and Casey’s teenage self-centeredness, she’d been the center of the McDonald-Venturi household for the last four years. If she was upset, everyone else would spiral into that same state. Regardless of how explosive the two eldest stepsiblings’ relationship could get, it couldn’t compare to one of Marti’s episodes. Everyone else could essentially scatter or sink into the background to avoid getting caught in the crossfire between Derek and Casey. With Marti, however, it was less of a gunfight and more like a nuclear explosion.

Yet on the other side of the spectrum, this girl could sit back and observe or be entirely and absolutely absorbed in something else, and she would _still_ be more perceptive than the entire family put together. Childlike innocence aside, Marti _knew_ things.

A soft and steady presence, a heart _knew_ things—may it be wise and perceptive, weird and unexplainable. And when it was in jeopardy, so was everything else.

But there had been something else—something Casey hadn’t ever really considered before. It was an interdependency that was so subtle and yet so obvious.

Derek.

 _Derek_.

He was the rock—the _anchor_ —of the family. He was the one who weighed everyone back down when everyone—Casey especially—were in danger of floating away. Edwin would formulate his grand schemes and no one but Derek could cut him back down to size. Lizzie was too level-headed for flights of fancy, but even George and Nora had fallen victim to that once or twice. And of course, there was _Casey_.

He’d illustrated his role as an anchor time and time again, but it wasn’t until that exact moment that she really saw how much she needed… _him_. As much as she was loathe to admit it, it was the truth. He did call her “Space-Case” after all. And who else would put aside decorum and common courtesy to shoot her back down to earth before she really made a mess of things?

But just because he was a rock didn’t mean he was unbreakable.

There’s always that one man that would never cry. He could steel himself through pain, heartache, and _Titanic_ , so when he finally broke down, it broke down _everything_. It meant that something was just _so horrible_ , that the chink in his armor had _shattered_ , and if his walls crumbled, then there was no hope for anyone else’s.

For her, that man wasn’t her father or her stepfather. It was Derek—the skirt-chasing, inconsiderate, insensitive, prankster of a stepbrother. The chink in his armor had been found; the walls beginning to crack. Even though he still looked intact, she knew how close he really was to falling apart.

So she reached out and slid her fingers between his. When his fingers folded around hers, she pulled her other hand out of her pocket, covering his one hand with both of hers and giving him as much comfort and warmth as she could. The only thing in her mind was trying to help him hold himself together.

She didn’t try to talk out why he was crying or reassure that Marti was fine. She didn’t tell him everything would be okay or that he and the family would get through this. She never opened her mouth. Because sometimes when you’re deathly afraid of something, you’re beyond words of comfort. And she knew him enough that Derek had been _deathly_ afraid of losing his baby sister—she fell down _a flight of stairs_ for God’s sake! She could’ve snapped her neck or completely cracked her skull open!

He wasn’t crying anymore, but she knew that there were still things he needed to let out. In spite of how limp he looked, his entire frame was tense and stiff. There was something he was still bottling up, and Casey knew that the longer he kept it in, the bigger the explosion would be.

But she couldn’t push him. She couldn’t make him talk and make him let go.

So they just sat there.

Many different things ran through her mind the entire time—the smell of his hair, the feel of his calloused fingers between hers, the way the edge of the bench dug into the back of her thighs the longer they sat there for what seemed like forever but was, in actuality, just ten minutes.

She _wanted_ to sit there forever. She felt as if though this was the only way to truly help Derek in a more significant way than being his source of entertainment or letting him cheat her out of money or TV time. If this was all she could do for him, then she’d do it. Not because she owed him or because she felt bad for him. She just…wanted to do it. Something in her… _yearned_ to help him. It wasn’t her “bleeding heart” or compassion. It was just… _Derek._ Uncharacteristic, unanticipated, and unexplainable.

Neither of them said a word as she tugged on his hand and stood up, pulling him up with her. He made no move to extricate his hand from hers even as they walked into the hospital and back into Marti’s room. He just…gave her this look. This…unreadable look that clearly was trying to convey some sort of message that she just wasn’t receiving.

“Your hand still feels the same,” he muttered.

Uncharacteristic, unanticipated, and unbelievable.

Casey chuckled nervously, thrown by his comment. “What? Sticky and packed with cooties?” she quipped, trying to bring back some semblance of normalcy after everything that had happened already.

“No,” he answered quietly, brushing his thumb back and forth against the skin of her knuckles while his eyes remained trained on their clasped hands.

And then he squeezed one last time before letting go and walking into the room, resuming his post next to Marti’s bed.


	7. "Into the Night" - Carlos Santana feat. Chad Kroeger

 

_Ring._

Derek sighed and leaned back against the headrest of the Prince. He knew exactly who that was.

_Ring._

He seriously debated the pros and cons of answering it. If he did, he’d wind up losing his eyeballs because of how many times he’d be rolling it. If he didn’t, he’d wind up with bleeding ears.

 _Ring_.

No eyes or no ears?

Damn.

_Ring._

He rolled his eyes. _One_. He bypassed the _hello_ ’s and went straight for: “Don’t tell me you’re so tired that I’m gonna have to carry you out. Just because I call you ‘princess’ doesn’t mean—”

“—that I should expect you to treat me as such,” she finished in a reassuring tone that made his eye twitch. “That’s not why I’m calling, Derek.”

He tried to bang his head on the steering wheel as soundlessly as he could. “So what do you want, Spacey? I’m already out here in the parking lot, waiting for you and your jazz hands to get the hell outta there.”

She tutted, but he wasn’t sure if it was at him or at something else. “Teresa’s encouraged me to branch off from jazz and try this new Latin dance workshop she’s doing tonight, so I’m going to be a little later than normal. I called to say you can come in because there are chairs, hot cocoa, and fruits in here.”

His head lifted at the same time his eyebrows shot up. “What? You mean you’re not gonna bitch about me invading your personal haven that is the dance studio?”

“Derek, for the love of God, either get in here, sit out there for another hour and a half, or be forced to drive back and forth and waste gas.”

He rolled his eyes. _Two_. “All right, all right,” he groused, pulling the keys out of the ignition and kicking open the car door. “Don’t get your panties in a twist.”

He was halfway out of the car when he heard, “Don’t assume that just because _your_ panties get twisted around doesn’t mean the rest of ours do, dimwit. It’s your own fault that you get confused as to which holes to put your legs through.”

“Casey, I’m fully capable of putting things into their proper holes.”

She hung up on him.

~oOo~

He’d never been in a dance studio before. For one thing, exactly _what_ was he gonna do in there in the first place? So he had some pretty low expectations because of the movies he’d seen them featured in. They mostly looked like dinky old rooms or ratty warehouses with a couple of mirrors, a bar to operate as a place to both stretch and hang one’s shit on, and some middle-aged lady with too-perfect posture who barked out positions like a drill sergeant.

But since he hadn’t exactly been having the best month, he should’ve suspected that he wouldn’t be right about that image either.

He wouldn’t go into detail because of fear he’d sound like some pansy-ass author who enjoyed writing about gleaming hardwood floors, wide open windows that let in beams of sunlight that rebounded off the mirror to— _whatever_. He wouldn’t go through all that crap, but he would admit that this was a helluva nice place. A complicated-looking soundboard stood in the far right corner of the room, and further inspection led to noticing the speakers were hooked up at ever corner of the ceiling. There was a recessed kitchen area on the far left side of the room where a bar top looked out over the dance floor. There sat the hot chocolate and fruits.

Typical Casey to find the most kickass-looking dance studio in Kingston.

But the best sight had to be the rainbow of skirts that were all just _ogling_ him. Like, literally _rainbow._ Orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Green skirt (blonde, green eyes) grinned at him coquettishly, Blue Skirt (redhead, brown eyes) waggled her fingers in his direction, Indigo Skirt (dark brunette, blue eyes) went, “Hey, handsome,” Orange Skirt (light brunette, green eyes) was practically licking her lips, Yellow Skirt (dirty blonde, blue eyes) gave him a thorough inspection as she circled him slowly, but it was Violet Skirt (platinum blonde, gray eyes) who actually recognized him.

“Well, well, well, if it ain’t the famous Derek Venturi we’ve all been hearin’ ‘bout,” she drawled in a Southern accent—an _American_.

Derek smirked. “Casey’s been talking about me then?”

“Of course,” Indigo Skirt said, tilting her head to one side. “We all know about her skirt-chasing cad of a stepbrother.”

“And would you look at this,” he said, walking forward to put his arms around Orange and Green Skirts’ shoulders, “you’re all wearing such nice _skirts_.”

The girls giggled, but then a voice boomed from behind him. “Young man, you have been invited inside purely out of the goodness of my heart. I suggest you don’t do anything to make me change my mind like _distracting my dancers_!”

Derek practically leaped away from the girls like shrapnel and turned to look at who he assumed to be “Teresa.” That was the biggest shocker of his day—the woman was, like, _ninety years-old_.

He was too busy wondering how the old woman managed to walk two steps let alone teach a dance class, so he didn’t notice Casey come up behind him and knowingly hiss in his ear, “She’s seventy-four, Derek.”

He scoffed as he turned to face her. “That’s what she _tells_ you.”

She rolled her eyes at the same time that his own dropped to her skirt. _Red._ He reached out and tugged on an inch of the ruffly material.

“What is this?” he asked, masking the lump in his throat like the expert he was. “There’s enough fabric in this to mummify the entire student population of Queen’s.”

She shot him a withering stare and smacked his hand away from her skirt. “It’s part of the class, genius. It’s _Latin dancing_ , remember?”

“Yeah, I remember,” he said, tugging on her skirt again. “I don’t understand why you gotta have a class about it, though. It’s easy. Just shake your ass and— _voila!_ —Latin dancing.”

She smiled in spite of the fact that she punched his arm. He glared at her playfully and let her lead him to the kitchen and push him onto a barstool. Then she walked—no, wait, _strutted_ —back out onto the floor. “You can wait there until we’re done. Don’t get in the way, don’t distract the dancers, and for the love of God, _please_ don’t start _throwing things_.”

He jerked his hand back from the fruit tray and grinned at her. She knew him too well, and because he knew her just as well, she tripped upon seeing his smile—just like he anticipated. She righted herself, glared at him, and then turned away in a huff.

“All right, all right, simmer down, girls,” the dancing dinosaur called out, patting the air to quiet them all down and making her (extremely slow) way to the soundboard.

There wasn’t any sort of frantic rush to get into place before the music started. The girls moved fluidly, as if walking was choreographed too. And yet there was definitely an awkward moment when Green and Violet Skirts tugged Casey from where she stood in the middle of the floor to the side closest to Derek. His eyebrows shot up as Casey pointedly turned away from him, practically _glaring_ at her reflection in the mirror.

Derek’s temper flared unexpectedly, and he suddenly felt the extreme urge to start pegging Orange and Violet Skirts with some fruit chunks—screw Casey’s explicit instructions against doing so.

However, he was jolted out of his strategizing when Teresa turned a switch on the soundboard, and the music thumped out of the speakers—something involving Spanish guitars.

And _then_ it finally dawned on Derek why Casey was steadfastly refusing to look at him. She wasn’t pissed that her friends pushed her away from the middle. She was pissed that her friends pushed her in front of _him_.

The way they swished around made him pretty sure they were flamingo— _flamenco_ —dancing, but they didn’t have the castanets. And he was pretty sure flamenco dancing wasn’t that… _sensual._ It was a rainbow of bizarre, kaleidoscopic combinations of flamenco, partner-less tango, and ballet—but all thoughts of chucking fruits flew out of his head as soon as that red skirt began to sway.

He’d seen Casey dance before— _obviously_ since he lived with her for the past four years and had personally danced with her for that one competition. Of course he was familiar with her dancing.

But this was just… _different_.

When she danced before—jazz, ballet, or whatever—she was like a river. Her blue eyes held the passion, the force, the _current_. The passion was focused and fluid in her movements, and since Casey was all about restraint, jazz and ballet were her forte. They were _controlled outlets_ for her passion.

This time, however, she was all raw, sensual fire—smooth and graceful just like a flame. Every swing of her hips, every whip of her head, every clap of her hands…

Derek’s knuckles were turning white because of how hard he was gripping the edge of the counter, his eyes locked on her and drifting back and forth with every sway of her hips. His jaw clenched tighter every time she drifted closer to him, but at the same time his eye twitched every time she glided away.

By the time the music ended, he hadn’t even realized that he was breathing as hard as she was until she walked up and demanded what his problem was.

“Nothing,” he choked out, releasing the countertop and flexing his fingers. “I’m fine.”

She reached forward over the bar and pressed her palm against his forehead. “D, you look like you’re running a fever. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yeah, Case, I’m fine.” He couldn’t even look her in the eye.

She narrowed her eyes at him in suspicion and walked over to the fridge and threw him a water bottle. “Advil’s in the cabinet if you need it. We’ll be running through some other dances, so just sit tight, okay?”

He gulped as his mind went straight to hell as her words spun around in his mind, reforming different phrases and making him break out in a sweat.

~oOo~

“Do you have lice?”

Derek yanked his fingers out of the knots they’d made in his hair. _“What?!”_

“Because if you have lice, you need to get out of here right now,” Casey said adamantly, frowning in either worry, frustration, or exasperation. Or maybe all three.

“I don’t have lice!” Derek snapped irritably. He was _on-freaking-edge_.

“Well, you’ve been sitting there with your hands in your hair for the last ten minutes. You’re making me _really_ nervous.”

Derek glared at her and leaned back against the barstool, trying to exude as much of his normal lackadaisical attitude and failing horrendously. “I’m fine.”

She grabbed another water bottle from the fridge and took a few sips. “Derek, you don’t _look_ fine. It felt like you were running a temperature, and now you’ve got your hands in your hair like each hemisphere of your head is housing a lice colony. What’s _wrong_?”

“Casey, for crying out loud, I’m _fine_. I’m just…”

She stared at him imploringly, urging him to continue. “Just…?”

“I’m just _tired_ ,” he croaked, hopping down from the stool. “You done?”

“Yeah,” she answered, eyeing him skeptically. “Let me just go…grab my stuff, and we’ll get out of here.”

Derek suppressed a relieved groan and followed her out of the kitchen.

“Bye, Derek!” the skirts chorused, waving at him innocently.

He glared at them for good measure—and they knew _exactly_ why. Sneaky, conniving little demons who practically _paraded_ Casey in front of him like— __

“I hope you didn’t mind having to sit through that,” Casey said, bending down to pick up her bag. And then she scoffed. “But you’re _Derek Venturi_. Watching a bunch of girls dancing in front of you is hardly an ordeal. You can thank me by buying me dinner. What do you say?”

She straightened up with a smile, and his jaw clenched. He was gonna have a serious toothache tomorrow. All he could do was nod and silently follow her out of the building. That was a bad idea too because she was still wearing _that red skirt_. He brushed past her and led the way to the Prince.

She continued to babble on and on about something that he couldn’t even hear over the roaring in his ears, but as soon as he got into the car and turned the key in the ignition only for nothing to happen, the roaring vanished.

“Shit.”

 _Best month ever_.

“Language,” she snapped warningly as she hopped out of the car. “Pop the hood.”

He gawked at her. “What?”

She leaned against the car and shot him a longsuffering look. “Pop—the—hood,” she repeated bracingly.

“What’cha gonna do, princess? Kiss the Prince and make it all better?” he mocked with a sneer.

She shot him another withering glare, and he popped the hood to make her face disappear for a few seconds.

This was gonna be a difficult night for him.

“Try turning the wheel and turn it on again,” she ordered from behind the metal panel.

For once, he obeyed. Nothing happened.

“Is the car in park? If it was shut off in gear, it won’t start.”

“Yes, McEngineer. It’s in park. I’m not an idiot.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” she retorted. He walked right into that one. “It can’t be the battery since we just changed it last week,” she continued. “We might have a bad ignition switch. Turn the car on, but don’t start the engine. Are the warning lights working?”

He obeyed for a second time. “Nope.”

“We now officially have a bad ignition switch,” she announced, closing the hood and walking around to get back into the car to grab her phone out of her bag. “We’re gonna need a tow service.”

He stared at her as she dialed. “How did you—”

She gave him a knowing look as she held the phone to her ear. “It pays to be a keener, Derek.”

_Fifteen minutes later:_

“Regardless of whether or not it pays to be a keener, it would’ve paid off more if you were a legit mechanic. Now we’re gonna be sitting here for three hours,” Derek grumbled, reclining his seat and folding his arms behind his head.

“As if it’s _my_ fault that all the services are booked right now! As if it’s _my_ fault that a bunch of people all decided to get into a car accident _tonight_!” she shot back.

“Ever heard of the butterfly effect?”

“If you’re gonna bring up the butterfly effect, then _you_ could very well be the source of our problems!”

Derek scoffed. “Like _I_ could cause that kind of pain and destruction, _Klutzilla_!”

“ _Obviously_ you have never seen Thompson High girls fight over you,” she  pointed out snidely.

He froze and gaped at her. “I _wish_! Why didn’t you ever tell me when a catfight was going down?!”

“Der-ek!”

“Oh, come on, Case! You should’ve seen that coming. What normal guy wouldn’t wanna see a bunch of girls fighting over him?”

_“A respectable gentleman.”_

He rolled his eyes and snorted. “A ‘respectable gentleman’ is just a perv hiding under a mask of propriety. You’re better off with a _real_ guy.”

“Your definition of ‘real’ is vastly different from the actual definition, Derek,” she reminded him patronizingly.

He sat up and narrowed his eyes at her. “ _Real_ —existing or occurring as fact; actual rather than imaginary, ideal, or fictitious. I know _exactly_ what _real_ means, Casey. And in context, your ‘respectable gentleman’ is the very opposite of real because that guy is just acting under the pretenses of being raised with particular manners whereas _I_ give it to you straight. What you see is what you get—no pretty packaging or misleading descriptions.”

Her eyes were wide and her pink little mouth was shaped in a perfect _O._

Oh, shit.

“Besides,” he said, frantically trying to reel the conversation back to familiar territory as he resumed his reclined position, “the car was running earlier when I came to pick you up. But who was it that had to stay behind another hour?”

Casey managed to snap out of her Derek-induced shock. “Oh, _yes_ , because my decision to join an extra workshop was what caused the Prince’s ignition switch to malfunction. Of course. Your logic is _sound_ , Venturi.”

“We should just hitch a ride home with one of the Skirts.”

“Skirts?” she echoed, frowning.

“The other dancers,” he clarified patronizingly as he mimed swinging an imaginary skirt around his hips.

She rolled her eyes. “We can’t just leave the car here. Look, let’s just go get something to eat. You didn’t eat anything in the studio for some _bizarre_ reason, and I’m starving. Let’s just walk to that pizzeria down the block.”

He frowned at her in shock. “Aren’t you gonna say something about staying with the car in case they’re able to send someone over early?”

“You’re just gonna force me to leave it anyway,” she said blandly. “At least we’ll just be gone for half an hour.”

He smirked and sat up again. “ _Your_ logic is sound, McDonald.”

~oOo~

He slung an arm around her shoulder as they walked out of the warm atmosphere of the pizzeria. He didn’t do it to seduce her to shield her from the cold October night or _whatever_. He just…did it because he felt like resting his arm around her shoulder because she was…just the right height for him to do so.

Plus, it elicited this reaction from her: “Der-ek!” she protested, shrugging away from his arm and cringing. “I don’t want the smell of your armpit on my shoulder!”

He laughed and nudged her with his shoulder, knocking her off balance a little. Of course, even a small nudge like that meant the potential threat of doing a complete face-plant against the pavement. So his hand immediately shot out to wrap around hers to steady her.

And it was the damn _conservatory_ again.

“Thanks,” she said breathlessly, gripping his hand and adjusting her skirt self-consciously.

“Well,” he said with a smirk, “haven’t we been here before?”

She looked up at him with raised eyebrows. “Cruise Reference Number Three?”

He shrugged. “What? Now it’s a bad thing to reminisce?”

He turned her around a little so he could set his hand on her waist.

“Derek, what are you doing?”

He hushed her, frowning. “I’m full and that means I’m happy. I’m happy and that means you should take advantage of the fact that I’m not squirting super glue in your hair or something. And seriously? I think it’s pretty obvious what I’m doing. You’ve been taking dance lessons since you were two days old, right?”

He took a step forward, and her training kicked in so that she took a step back in reply.

“Derek, you’re trying to dance with me…on a _sidewalk._ ”

“Would you rather I be ramming your head onto the sidewalk?”

“Der-ek!”

He grinned as she laughed. She finally decided _to hell with it_ and rested her hand on his shoulder. The smile on her face vanished, though, when she saw his grin had morphed into his famous smirk.

“Oh, no, _Der—_ ”

He didn’t even let her finish his name before he yanked her into a lively rendition of their dance from her grandmother’s lodge. She had the exact same laugh and grin as he pushed and pulled her around—only this time, she laughed harder and grinned wider because they looked like two _absolute lunatics_ dancing like maniacs on the sidewalk. The people who dodged them either pointed and laughed or frowned and quickened their pace.

When he accidentally stumbled backward on a crack in the concrete, it was Casey who yanked him back and righted him. When they finally looked at each other, they burst out laughing and had to hold each other to keep from falling over. Their laughs eventually subsided into a comfortable silence. She held his hand and wrapped one arm around his shoulder, pulling them chest-to-chest as they swayed back and forth.

“It’s good to see I didn’t lose you there, D,” she said, patting his back gently.

“Oh, come on, Case. I _stumbled_. I didn’t cause some sort of domino effect and somehow wound up taking down the entire city with me,” he chortled, wrapping an arm around her waist and squeezing her hand.

She jabbed her knee against his, somehow smiling and grimacing at the same time. “I don’t mean that, jerk. I’m talking about you in general. I’ve been worried about you ever since Marti’s accident.”

He flinched and made a move to step out of their little dance, but she kept a firm hold on him, refusing to let go of whatever moment they’d been having. “I’m fine, Spacey.”

She squeezed the back of his neck. “You can fool everyone else, Derek, but you can’t fool me. You’re a good actor, and you can play things off very well. But you’re just not good enough.”

He glared at her, and of course, she glared right back.

“You were fine back home, but as soon as we got to Kingston, it’s like something changed. It wasn’t… _obvious_ or anything, but after being around you so much, it wasn’t hard for me to see it. I’m pretty sure your teammates would’ve figured it out eventually. You’re still…yourself, but it’s… _muted_. And that’s saying a lot considering it’s you. You’re not okay, D. You don’t have to lie to me.”

“I lie to you on a daily basis,” he said seriously, looking at a point somewhere above her head, “when I let you out of the house thinking you look like a civilized human being.”

She smirked and punched him right in the chest before sighing and resting her head on his shoulder. They continued moving back and forth, shifting their weight from one foot to the other.

Casey knew exactly how to push his buttons. She knew just the right things to push him over the edge. She knew exactly where the line was, and she made it very clear that she had no qualms about crossing it.

But it was times like this and when they were sitting outside the hospital that he knew she knew when it was an opportune moment to cross that line and when not to.

He was just so _over_ this pretending shit.

“How is it you can see stuff like that, but you can’t see the most obvious things?” he asked after a couple of minutes.

“What’s obvious?” she asked, lifting her head off his shoulder and looking up at him with those bright blue eyes.

“That the fever I got was because of you. That I kept yanking my hair out because of you. That I am _dancing_ on a _sidewalk_ because of you.”

Her eyes were wide as she swallowed nervously.

He smiled—not smirked. “For a keener, you’re really stupid.”

Then he bent down and kissed her.

No more pretending.

 


End file.
